


The darkness in the sun

by Send_help_im_drowning



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, platonic calypso/leo valdez, platonic calypso/original female character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2019-11-16 04:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 156,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18087458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Send_help_im_drowning/pseuds/Send_help_im_drowning
Summary: The war on the titans may have been won with her help, but Emily-Catherine Solace (Cath or Cathy if you are - or were, before - her friend, Missy if you're her twin Will) has lost. Her closest of friends have either died or been a cause of death. Her trust is gone. Her faith is gone. Her love for anyone and anything but her brother is gone.What happens when her once close friend and a son of Iris crash her cabin's chariot into the lake as they arrive with three new demigods? What happens when the three of them go on a quest with her to save the queen of heavens? Possibly more important, what happens if amongst those three is the one to save her from herself?





	1. Chapter 1

"The lake! Aim for the lake!" I looked up from my book to see a chariot - my cabin's chariot - crashing into the water.

The naiads tossed Annabeth and three new kids onto the shore. Nearby, Butch stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off the pegasi. Fortunately, the horses looked okay, but they were flapping their wings and splashing water everywhere. A detail of campers ran up with big bronze leaf blower-looking things and blasted everyone with hot air; and in about two seconds their clothes were dry. A second later the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.  
  
“Annabeth!” My twin pushed through the crowd. “I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!” I walked up next to him and crossed my arms.  
  
“Will, Cath, I’m sorry,” Annabeth sighed. “I’ll get it fixed, I promise.”  
  
I scowled at our broken chariot, then sized up the three new kids. “These are the ones? Way older than thirteen. Why haven’t they been claimed already?” I couldn't help the snippy tone of my voice, but then again, I'm not sure if I'd spoken more gently if I could.  
  
“Claimed?” one asked.  
  
Before Annabeth could explain, Will said, “Any sign of Percy?”  
  
“No,” Annabeth admitted.  
  
The campers muttered. I just rolled my eyes at the thought of him.  
  
Another girl stepped forward - tall, Asian, dark hair in ringlets, plenty of jewelry, and perfect makeup. Somehow, Drew managed to make jeans and an orange T-shirt look glamorous. She glanced at the shorter of the two guys, fixed her eyes on the taller like he might be worthy of her attention, then curled her lip at the girl as if she were a week-old burrito that had just been pulled out of a Dumpster.  
  
“Well,” she said, “I hope they’re worth the trouble.”  
  
The shorter guy snorted. “Gee, thanks. What are we, your new pets?”  
  
“No kidding,” The tall one said. “How about some answers before you start judging us - like, what is this place, why are we here, how long do we have to stay?”  
  
“Jason,” Annabeth said, “I promise we’ll answer your questions. And Drew” - she frowned at the glamour girl - “all demigods are worth saving. But I’ll admit, the trip didn’t accomplish what I hoped.”  
  
“Hey,” the girl said, “we didn’t ask to be brought here.”  
  
Drew sniffed. “And nobody wants you, hon. Does your hair always look like a dead badger?”  
  
The girl stepped forward, ready to smack her, but Annabeth said, “Piper, stop.”  
  
Piper did, smartly - Annabeth isn't somebody you want for an enemy.  
  
“We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome,” Annabeth said, with another pointed look at Drew. “We’ll assign them each a guide, give them a tour of camp. Hopefully by the campfire tonight, they’ll be claimed.”  
  
“Would somebody tell me what claimed means?” Piper asked.  
  
Suddenly there was a collective gasp. The campers backed away.  
  
Floating over the guy's head was a blazing holographic image - a fiery hammer, the symbol of Hephaestus.  
  
“That,” Annabeth said, “is claiming.”  
  
“What’d I do?” Leo backed toward the lake. Then he glanced up and yelped. “Is my hair on fire?” He ducked, but the symbol followed him, bobbing and weaving so it looked like he was trying to write something in flames with his head.  
  
“This can’t be good,” Butch muttered. “The curse-”  
  
“Butch, shut up,” Annabeth said. “Leo, you’ve just been claimed-”  
  
“By a god,” The blond one interrupted. “That’s the symbol of Vulcan, isn’t it?”  
  
All eyes turned to him.  
  
“Jason,” Annabeth said carefully, “how did you know that?”  
  
“I’m not sure.”  
  
“Vulcan?” Leo demanded. “I don’t even LIKE Star Trek. What are you talking about?”  
  
“Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He's the god of blacksmiths and fire.”  
  
The fiery hammer faded, but Leo kept swatting the air like he was afraid it was following him. “The god of what? Who?”  
  
Annabeth turned to me and my twin. “Will, Cathy, would you take Leo, give him a tour? Introduce him to his bunk-mates in Cabin Nine.”  
  
“Sure, Annabeth,” My brother agreed. I wanted to roll my eyes at her, but I didn't want to disappoint my twin. I'd promised him a few days ago - a day before Percy disappeared - that I'd try not to be as hostile towards them.  
  
“What’s Cabin Nine?” Leo asked. “And I’m not a Vulcan!”  
  
“Come on, Mr. Spock, I’ll explain everything.” Will put a hand on his shoulder and steered him off toward the cabins, his arm linked with mine - something we'd done since we were little.  
  
We were showing him everything, but Will did most (all) of the explaining.  
  
“Do I get a sword?” Leo asked as we walked past the sword arena.  
  
Will glanced at him like he found the idea disturbing. “You’ll probably make your own, seeing as how you’re in Cabin Nine.”  
  
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Vulcan?”  
  
“Usually we don’t call the gods by their Roman names,” Will said. “The original names are Greek. Your dad is Hephaestus.”  
  
“Festus? Sounds like the god of cowboys.”  
  
“He-phaestus,” I corrected, annoyed. “God of blacksmiths and fire.”  
  
“So the flaming hammer over my head,” Leo said. “Good thing, or bad thing?”  
  
Will took a while to answer. “You were claimed almost immediately. That’s usually good.”  
  
“But that Rainbow Pony dude, Butch - he mentioned a curse.”  
  
“Ah... look, it’s nothing. Since Cabin Nine’s last head counselor died-”

“Died? Like, painfully?” I crossed my arms, looked towards the ground, and resisted the urge to run away. I did not need to hear about Charlie's death.  
  
“I ought to let your bunkmates tell you about it.”  
  
“Yeah, where are my home dawgs? Shouldn’t their counselor be giving me the VIP tour?”  
  
“He, um, can’t. You’ll see why.” We forged ahead before Leo could ask anything else.  
  
“Curses and death,” Leo said to himself. “This just gets better and better.”  
  
Leo froze in his tracks.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Will asked.  
  
“That old lady …” Leo said. “What’s she doing here?”  
  
I tried to follow his gaze. “What old lady?” I frowned - if Will couldn't see her either, why could this guy?  
  
“Dude, the old lady. The one in black. How many old ladies do you see over there?”  
  
I frowned. “I think you’ve had a long day, Leo. The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?” I started walking at my brother's words before Leo could answer.  
  
“Just messing with you, man.” Leo pulled some gears and levers from his pockets and started fiddling with them.  
  
“Let’s go see Cabin Nine,” he said. “I’m in the mood for a good curse.”  
  
From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked like an oversize RV with shiny metal walls and metal-slatted windows. The entrance was like a bank vault door, circular and several feet thick. It opened with lots of brass gears turning and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke.  
  
Leo whistled. “They got a steampunk theme going on, huh?”  
  
Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. Steel bunks were folded against the walls like high-tech Murphy beds. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems, and interlocking gears.  A fire pole came down from the second floor, even though the cabin didn’t appear to have a second floor from the outside. A circular staircase led down into some kind of basement. The walls were lined with every kind of power tool you could imagine, plus a huge assortment of knives, swords, and other implements of destruction. A large workbench overflowed with scrap metal - screws, bolts, washers, nails, rivets, and a million other machine parts.

He picked a long implement from the wall. “A weed whacker? What’s the god of fire want with a weed whacker?”  
  
A voice in the shadows said, “You’d be surprised.”  
  
At the back of the room, one of the bunk beds was occupied. A curtain of dark camouflage material retracted, and we could see the guy who’d been invisible a second before. It was hard to tell much about him because he was covered in a body cast. His head was wrapped in gauze except for his face, which was puffy and bruised. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a beat-down.  
  
“I’m Jake Mason,” the guy said. “I’d shake your hand, but...”  
  
“Yeah,” Leo said. “Don’t get up.”  
  
The guy cracked a smile, then winced like it hurt to move his face. I sighed softly - I wasn't close to Jake before his accident, but I saw him often enough when talking to Charlie, and he was a good guy.  
  
“Welcome to Cabin Nine,” Jake said. “Been almost a year since we had any new kids. I’m head counselor for now.”  
  
“For now?” Leo asked.  
  
Will cleared his throat. “So where is everybody, Jake?”  
  
“Down at the forges,” Jake said wistfully. “They’re working on... you know, that problem.”  
  
“Oh.” Will changed the subject. “So, you got a spare bed for Leo?”  
  
Jake studied Leo, sizing him up. “You believe in curses, Leo? Or ghosts?”  
  
He said, “Ghosts? Pfft. Nah. I’m cool. A storm spirit chucked me down the Grand Canyon this morning, but you know, all in a day’s work, right?”  
  
Jake nodded. “That’s good. Because I’ll give you the best bed in the cabin - Beckendorf’s.” My head snapped up, and Jake visibly flinched under my glare. It looked like it hurt.  _Serves him right_ , I thought. We hadn't even managed to fully take care of his possessions yet; some of Charlie's stuff was still in the room below.  
  
“Jake,” Will said, glancing at me cautiously. “Are you sure?”  
  
Jake called out: “Bunk 1-A, please.”  
  
The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiraled open like a camera lens, and a full-size bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in the headboard, a glass-door refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side.  
  
Leo jumped right in and lay back with arms behind his head. “I can handle this.”  
  
“It retracts into a private room below,” Jake said.  
  
“Oh, heck, yes,” Leo said. “See y’all. I’ll be down in the Leo Cave. Which button do I press?”  
  
“Hold on,” Will Solace protested. “You guys have private underground rooms?”  
  
Jake probably would’ve smiled if it didn’t hurt so much. “We got lots of secrets, Will. You Apollo guys can’t have all the fun. Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under Cabin Nine for almost a century. We still haven’t found the end. Anyway, Leo, if you don’t mind sleeping in a dead man’s bed, it’s yours.”  
  
Leo sat up, careful not to touch any of the buttons. “The counselor who died - this was his bed?”  
  
“Yeah,” I said, venom dripping from my voice to hide the lingering sadness. “Charles Beckendorf.”

“He didn’t, like, die in this bed, did he?”  
  
“No,” Jake said. “In the Titan War, last summer.”  
  
“The Titan War,” Leo repeated, “which has nothing to do with this very fine bed?”  
  
“The Titans,” Will said, like Leo was an idiot - rightfully so. “The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost destroyed Mount Olympus. A lot of demigods died trying to stop them, including our head counsellor - our half-brother, Michael - which is why my sister and I have taken over."  
  
“I’m guessing this all wasn’t on the news?” Leo said.  
  
Will shook his head in disbelief. “You didn’t hear about Mount St. Helens erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St. Louis?”  
  
Leo shrugged. “Guess I was busy.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” Jake said. “You were lucky to miss it. The thing is, Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then-”  
  
“Your cabin’s been cursed,” Leo guessed.  
  
Jake didn’t answer. Then again, the dude was in a body cast. That was an answer.

Jake sighed halfheartedly. “Well, I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be... really nice.”  
  
He closed his eyes, and the camouflage curtain drew itself across the bed.  
  
“Come on, Leo,” Will said. “I’ll take you to the forges.”  
  
“How did he die?" Leo asked. “I mean Beckendorf.”  
  
We trudged ahead. “Explosion. Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn’t make it out.” I bit my lip. Charlie's death was hardest on Silena - his girlfriend, and one of my best friends - and me. He'd been the one to lead me and Will around camp, and when Will and I got claimed, he made me my bow, which I still used to this day.  
  
“So Beckendorf was pretty popular?” Leo asked. “I mean - before he blew up?”  
  
“He was awesome,” I said bitterly. “It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake - he became head counselor in the middle of the war. Same as we did." Will squeezed my shoulder, and linked his arm back through mine before taking over. "Jake did his best, but he never wanted to be leader. He just likes building stuff. Then after the war, things started to go wrong. Cabin Nine’s chariots blew up. Their automatons went haywire. Their inventions started to malfunction. It was like a curse, and eventually people started calling it that - the Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jake had his accident-”  
  
“Which had something to do with the problem he mentioned,” Leo guessed.  
  
“They’re working on it,” Will said without enthusiasm. “And here we are.”  
  
The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. White marble columns lined the soot-stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. We could hear machinery grinding inside, fires roaring, and hammers ringing on anvils.  
  
We stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who’d been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.  
  
“’Sup, guys,” Will said. “This is your new brother, Leo- um, what’s your last name?”  
  
“Valdez.” Leo looked around at the other campers.  
  
Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. None of them looked like the others - all different face types, skin tone, hair color, height. You’d never think, Hey, look, it’s the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn’t have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.  
  
And all the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Several looked like they’d been physically beaten up, too. I counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Ace bandages, and about seven thousand Band-Aids.  
  
“Well, all right!” Leo said. “I hear this is the party cabin!”  
  
Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.  
  
Will Solace patted Leo’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?”  
  
“I got it,” Nyssa said.  
  
“Cool,” Leo said. “I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.”  
  
Nyssa didn’t smile. “Come on, joker boy. I’ll show you around.”  
  
I turned around and walked off, slightly dragging Will.

"Hey..." He tugged lightly on my arm, and I got the hint. I stopped and turned around. He unhooked our elbows and put his hands on my shoulders. "Hey, I know it's hard to talk about them, but it's been months. You have to start accepting people in your life again..." I had been avoiding his gaze, but I looked him straight into the eyes at that. "What, so they can die on me too? So the so-called 'heroes' of this camp can make them explode, cause them to drown underneath the remains of a bridge, give them a knife to kill themselves with?!" My voice started cracking in the middle of my rant, so I lowered it to a whisper at the end. "You know damn well that it was their own choice to take the risk, and you made the same choice. And you know I love you, but you have to stop blaming others." My gaze hardened. "Missy, you know I love you, but this behavior is not healthy. I should know, I'm the best healer at camp." He joked softly, squeezing my shoulders.

"I know, it's just... It's harder than you'd think, okay? I'm trying not to be a total bitch, I swear." His soft smile turned into a grin as I finished speaking, and he slung his arm around my shoulder. "Now c'mon, let's check the infirmary's inventory before dinner, and you can shine at the campfire tonight."


	2. Chapter 2

Even if I was ridden with sadness and anger from nostalgia, I enjoyed campfires. Fifty or sixty kids filled the rows, clustered into groups under various banners.  
  
Standing in front of the fire, half a dozen campers - most of them from my cabin - with guitars and lyres were jumping around, with me leading a song about pieces of armor and about how our grandma got dressed for war. Everybody was singing with us and making gestures for the pieces of armor and joking around. As the energy level got higher, the flames did too, turning from red to orange to gold. As I sung, I felt my vision fade. I saw myself firing arrow after arrow, the landscape around me frozen. I felt this would happen soon, but before I could see or sense any details, one of my half-sisters bumped into me and interrupted my premonition.  
  
Finally the song ended with a lot of rowdy applause. We all sat down underneath our respective banners. Chiron trotted forward, brandishing a spear impaled with toasted marshmallows. “Very nice! And a special welcome to our new arrivals. I am Chiron, camp activities director, and I’m happy you have all arrived here alive and with most of your limbs attached. In a moment, I promise we’ll get to the s’mores, but first-”  
  
“What about capture the flag?” somebody yelled. Grumbling broke out among some Ares kids.

“Yes,” the centaur said. “I know the Ares cabin is anxious to return to the woods for our regular games.”  
  
“And kill people!” one of them shouted.  
  
“However,” Chiron said, “until the dragon is brought under control, that won’t be possible. Cabin Nine, anything to report on that?”  
  
He turned to Leo’s group. Leo winked at Piper and shot her with a finger gun. Nyssa stood uncomfortably. “We’re working on it.”  
  
More grumbling.  
  
“How, Nyssa?” an Ares kid demanded.  
  
“Really hard,” she said.  
  
Nyssa sat down to a lot of yelling and complaining, which caused the fire to sputter chaotically. Chiron stamped his hoof against the fire pit stones - bang, bang, bang - and the campers fell silent.  
  
“We will have to be patient,” Chiron said. “In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to discuss.”  
  
“Percy?” someone asked. The fire dimmed even further, and I rolled my eyes, clenching my fist a little.  
  
Chiron gestured to Annabeth. She took a deep breath and stood.  
  
“I didn’t find Percy,” she announced. Her voice caught a little when she said his name. “He wasn’t at the Grand Canyon like I thought. But we’re not giving up. We’ve got teams everywhere. Grover, Tyson, Nico, the Hunters of Artemis - everyone’s out looking. We will find him. Chiron’s talking about something different. A new quest.”  
  
“It’s the Great Prophecy, isn’t it?” a girl called out.  
  
Everyone turned. The voice had come from a group in back, sitting under a rose-colored banner with a dove emblem. They’d been chatting among themselves and not paying much attention until their leader stood up: Drew.  
  
Everyone else looked surprised. Drew didn’t address the crowd very often.  
  
“Drew?” Annabeth said. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Well, come on.” Drew spread her hands like the truth was obvious. “Olympus is closed. Percy’s disappeared. Hera sends you a vision and you come back with three new demigods in one day. I mean, something weird is going on. The Great Prophecy has started, right?”  
  
Piper whispered to Rachel, “What’s she talking about - the Great Prophecy?”  
  
Then she seemed to realize everyone else was looking at Rachel, too.  
  
“Well?” Drew called down. “You’re the oracle. Has it started or not?”  
  
Rachel’s eyes looked scary in the firelight. She stepped forward calmly and addressed the camp.  
  
“Yes,” she said. “The Great Prophecy has begun.”  
  
Pandemonium broke out.  
  
When the talking finally subsided, Rachel took another step toward the audience, and fifty-plus demigods leaned away from her, as if one skinny redheaded mortal was more intimidating than all of them put together. I rolled my eyes at all of them.  
  
“For those of you who have not heard it,” Rachel said, “the Great Prophecy was my first prediction. It arrived in August. It goes like this:  
  
“Eight half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall-”  
  
Jason shot to his feet. His eyes looked wild, like he’d just been tasered.  
  
Even Rachel seemed caught off guard. “J-Jason?” she said. “What’s-”  
  
“Ut cum spiritu postrema sacramentum dejuremus,” he chanted. “Et hostes ornamenta addent ad ianuam necem.”  
  
An uneasy silence settled on the group. I recognized enough words to know it was the prophecy.  
  
“You just... finished the prophecy,” Rachel stammered. “ - An oath to keep with a final breath/And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death. How did you-”  
  
“I know those lines.” Jason winced and put his hands to his temples. “I don’t know how, but I know that prophecy.”  
  
“In Latin, no less,” Drew called out. “Handsome and smart.”  
  
There was some giggling from the Aphrodite cabin. God, what a bunch of losers, I thought. But it didn’t do much to break the tension. The campfire was burning a chaotic, nervous shade of green.  
  
Jason sat down, looking embarrassed, but Annabeth put a hand on his shoulder and muttered something reassuring.  
  
Rachel Dare still looked a little shaken. She glanced back at Chiron for guidance, but the centaur stood grim and silent, as if he were watching a play he couldn’t interrupt - a tragedy that ended with a lot of people dead onstage.  
  
“Well,” Rachel said, trying to regain her composure. “So, yeah, that’s the Great Prophecy. We hoped it might not happen for years, but I fear it’s starting now. I can’t give you proof. It’s just a feeling. And like Drew said, some weird stuff is happening. The eight demigods, whoever they are, have not been gathered yet. I get the feeling some are here tonight. Some are not here.”  
  
The campers began to stir and mutter, looking at each other nervously, until a drowsy voice in the crowd called out, “I’m here! Oh... were you calling roll?”  
  
“Go back to sleep, Clovis,” I yelled, and a lot of people laughed. A quick glare silenced them.  
  
“Anyway,” Rachel continued, “we don’t know what the Great Prophecy means. We don’t know what challenge the demigods will face, but since the first Great Prophecy predicted the Titan War, we can guess the second Great Prophecy will predict something at least that bad.”  
  
“Or worse,” Chiron murmured.  
  
Maybe he didn’t mean everyone to overhear, but they did. The campfire immediately turned dark purple.  
  
“What we do know,” Rachel said, “is that the first phase has begun. A major problem has arisen, and we need a quest to solve it. Hera, the queen of the gods, has been taken.”  
  
Shocked silence. Then fifty demigods started talking at once.  
  
Chiron pounded his hoof again, but Rachel still had to wait before she could get back their attention.  
  
She told them about the incident on the Grand Canyon skywalk - how Gleeson Hedge had sacrificed himself when the storm spirits attacked, and the spirits had warned it was only the beginning. They apparently served some great mistress who would destroy all demigods.  
  
Then Rachel told them about Piper passing out in Hera’s cabin. Finally she got to Jason’s vision in the living room of the Big House.  
  
“Jason,” Rachel said. “Um... do you remember your last name?”  
  
He looked self-conscious, but he shook his head.  
  
“We’ll just call you Jason, then,” Rachel said. “It’s clear Hera herself has issued you a quest.”  
  
Rachel paused, as if giving Jason a chance to protest his destiny. Everyone’s eyes were on him; there was so much pressure, but he looked brave and determined. He set his jaw and nodded. “I agree.”  
  
“You must save Hera to prevent a great evil,” Rachel continued. “Some sort of king from rising. For reasons we don’t yet understand, it must happen by the winter solstice, only four days from now.”  
  
“That’s the council day of the gods,” Annabeth said. “If the gods don’t already know Hera’s gone, they will definitely notice her absence by then. They’ll probably break out fighting, accusing each other of taking her. That’s what they usually do.”  
  
“The winter solstice,” Chiron spoke up, “is also the time of greatest darkness. The gods gather that day, as mortals always have, because there is strength in numbers. The solstice is a day when evil magic is strong. Ancient magic, older than the gods. It is a day when things... stir.”  
  
The way he said it, stirring sounded absolutely sinister - like it should be a first-degree felony, not something you did to cookie dough.  
  
“Okay,” Annabeth said, glaring at the centaur. “Thank you, Captain Sunshine. Whatever’s going on, I agree with Rachel. Jason has been chosen to lead this quest, so-”  
  
“Why hasn’t he been claimed?” somebody yelled from the Ares cabin. “If he’s so important-”  
  
“He has been claimed,” Chiron announced. “Long ago. Jason, give them a demonstration.”  
  
At first, Jason didn’t seem to understand. He stepped forward nervously and glanced at Piper, and she nodded encouragingly. She mimicked flipping a coin.  
  
Jason reached into his pocket. His coin flashed in the air, and when he caught it in his hand, he was holding a lance - a rod of gold about seven feet long, with a spear tip at one end.  
  
The other demigods gasped. Rachel and Annabeth stepped back to avoid the point, which looked sharp as an ice pick.  
  
“Wasn’t that...” Annabeth hesitated. “I thought you had a sword.”  
  
“Um, it came up tails, I think,” Jason said. “Same coin, long-range weapon form.”  
  
“Dude, I want one!” yelled somebody from Ares cabin.  
  
“Better than Clarisse’s electric spear, Lamer!” one of his brothers agreed.  
  
“Electric,” Jason murmured, like that was a good idea. “Back away.”  
  
Annabeth and Rachel got the message. Jason raised his javelin, and thunder broke open the sky. Every hair on my arms stood straight up. Lightning arced down through the golden spear point and hit the campfire with the force of an artillery shell.  
  
When the smoke cleared, and the ringing in my ears subsided, the entire camp sat frozen in shock, half blind, covered in ashes, staring at the place where the fire had been. Cinders rained down everywhere. A burning log had impaled itself a few inches from Clovis, who hadn’t even stirred.  
  
Jason lowered his lance. “Um... sorry.”  
  
Chiron brushed some burning coals out of his beard. He grimaced as if his worst fears had been confirmed. “A little overkill, perhaps, but you’ve made your point. And I believe we know who your father is.”  
  
“Jupiter,” Jason said. “I mean Zeus. Lord of the Sky.”

Everything broke into chaos, with dozens of people asking questions until Annabeth raised her arms.  
  
“Hold it!” she said. “How can he be the son of Zeus? The Big Three... their pact not to have mortal kids... how could we not have known about him sooner?”  
  
Chiron didn’t answer, but I got the feeling he knew. And the truth was not good.  
  
“The important thing,” Rachel said, “is that Jason’s here now. He has a quest to fulfill, which means he will need his own prophecy.”  
  
She closed her eyes and swooned. Two campers rushed forward and caught her. A third ran to the side of the amphitheater and grabbed a bronze three-legged stool, they’d been trained for this duty. They eased Rachel onto the stool in front of the ruined hearth. Without the fire, the night was dark, but green mist started swirling around Rachel’s feet. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing. Emerald smoke issued from her mouth. The voice that came out was raspy and ancient - the sound a snake would make if it could talk:  
  
“Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants’ revenge the eight shall birth, The forge, dove and sun shall break the cage, And death unleashes through Hera’s rage.”  
  
On the last word, Rachel collapsed, but her helpers were waiting to catch her. They carried her away from the hearth and laid her in the corner to rest.  
  
“Is that normal?” Piper asked. Everyone looked at her. “I mean… does she spew green smoke a lot?”  
  
“Gods, you’re dense!” Drew sneered. “She just issued a prophecy - Jason’s prophecy to save Hera! Why don’t you just-”  
  
“Drew,” Annabeth snapped. “Piper asked a fair question. Something about that prophecy definitely isn’t normal. If breaking Hera’s cage unleashes her rage and causes a bunch of death... why would we free her? It might be a trap, or- or maybe Hera will turn on her rescuers. She’s never been kind to heroes.”  
  
Jason rose. “I don’t have much choice. Hera took my memory. I need it back. Besides, we can’t just not help the queen of the heavens if she’s in trouble.”  
  
Nyssa stood up. “Maybe. But you should listen to Annabeth. Hera can be vengeful. She threw her own son - our dad - down a mountain just because he was ugly.”  
  
“Real ugly,” snickered someone from Aphrodite.  
  
“Shut up!” Nyssa growled. “Anyway, we’ve also got to think - why beware the earth? And what’s the giants’ revenge? What are we dealing with here that’s powerful enough to kidnap the queen of the heavens?”  
  
No one answered, but I noticed Annabeth and Chiron having a silent exchange, which went something like:  
  
Annabeth: _The giants’ revenge... no, it can’t be._  
  
Chiron: _Don’t speak of it here. Don’t scare them._  
  
Annabeth: _You’re kidding me! We can’t be_ that _unlucky._  
  
Chiron: _Later, child. If you told them everything, they would be too terrified to proceed._  
  
Annabeth took a deep breath. “It’s Jason’s quest,” she announced, “so it’s Jason’s choice. Obviously, he’s the child of lightning. According to tradition, he may choose any two companions, but this prophecy seems to ask for three.”  
  
Someone from the Hermes cabin yelled, “Well, you, obviously, Annabeth. You’ve got the most experience.”  
  
“No, Travis,” Annabeth said. “First off, I’m not helping Hera. Every time I’ve tried, she’s deceived me, or it’s come back to bite me later. Forget it. No way. Secondly, I’m leaving first thing in the morning to find Percy.”  
  
“It’s connected,” Piper blurted out. “You know that’s true, don’t you? This whole business, your boyfriend’s disappearance - it’s all connected.”  
  
“How?” demanded Drew. “If you’re so smart, how?”

Piper looked stunned, but Annabeth saved her. “You may be right, Piper. If this is connected, I’ll find out from the other end - by searching for Percy. As I said, I’m not about to rush off to rescue Hera, even if her disappearance sets the rest of the Olympians fighting again. But there’s another reason I can’t go. The prophecy says otherwise.”  
  
“It says who I pick,” Jason agreed. “The forge, dove and sun shall break the cage. The forge is the symbol of Vul- Hephaestus.”  
  
Under the Cabin Nine banner, Nyssa’s shoulders slumped, like she’d just been given a heavy anvil to carry. “If you have to beware the earth,” she said, “you should avoid traveling overland. You’ll need air transport. The flying chariot’s broken, and the pegasi, we’re using them to search for Percy. But maybe Hephaestus cabin can help figure out something else to help. With Jake incapacitated, I’m senior camper. I can volunteer for the quest.”  
  
She didn’t sound enthusiastic.  
  
Then Leo stood up. He’d been so quiet, I had almost forgotten he was there, which seemed to totally not be like Leo.  
  
“It’s me,” he said.  
  
His cabinmates stirred. Several tried to pull him back to his seat, but Leo resisted.  
  
“No, it’s me. I know it is. I’ve got an idea for the transportation problem. Let me try. I can fix this!”  
  
Jason studied him for a moment. I was sure he was going to tell Leo no. Then he smiled. “We started this together, Leo. Seems only right you come along. You find us a ride, you’re in.”  
  
“Yes!” Leo pumped his fist.  
  
“It’ll be dangerous,” Nyssa warned him. “Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive.”  
  
“Oh.” Suddenly Leo didn’t look so excited. Then he remembered everyone was watching. “I mean... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let’s do this.”  
  
Annabeth nodded. “Then, Jason, you need to choose the third quest member. The dove-”  
  
“Oh, absolutely!” Drew was on her feet and flashing Jason a smile. “The dove is Aphrodite. Everybody knows that. I am totally yours.”  
  
Piper’s hands clenched. She stepped forward. “No.”  
  
Drew rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Dumpster girl. Back off.”  
  
“I had the vision of Hera; not you. I have to do this.”  
  
“Anyone can have a vision,” Drew said. “You were just at the right place at the right time.” She turned to Jason. “Look, fighting is all fine, I suppose. And people who build things...” She looked at Leo in disdain. “Well, I suppose someone has to get their hands dirty. But you need charm on your side. I can be very persuasive. I could help a lot.”  
  
The campers started murmuring about how Drew was pretty persuasive. I could see Drew winning them over. Even Chiron was scratching his beard, like Drew’s participation suddenly made sense to him.  
  
“Well...” Annabeth said. “Given the wording of the prophecy—”  
  
“No!” Piper’s own voice sounded strange in her ears - more insistent, richer in tone. “I’m supposed to go.”  
  
Everyone started nodding, muttering that _hmm, Piper’s point of view made sense too_. Drew looked around, incredulous. Even some of her own campers were nodding.  
  
“Get over it!” Drew snapped at the crowd. “What can Piper do?”

Piper didn't answer

“Well,” Drew said smugly, “I guess that settles it.”  
  
Suddenly there was collective gasp. Everyone looked at Piper like she'd just exploded, which she kind of had.  
  
“What?” she demanded.  
  
She looked above her, but there was no burning symbol like the one that appeared over Leo. Then she looked down and yelped.  
  
She was adorned in a beautiful white sleeveless gown that went down to her ankles, with a V-neck so low it was probably embarrassing. Delicate gold armbands circled her biceps. An intricate necklace of amber, coral, and gold flowers glittered on her chest, and her hair...  
  
“Oh, god,” she said. “What’s happened?”  
  
A stunned Annabeth pointed at Piper’s dagger, which was now oiled and gleaming, hanging at her side on a golden cord.  She unsheathed Katoptris and stared at her reflection in the polished metal blade. Her hair was perfect: lush and long and chocolate brown, braided with gold ribbons down one side so it fell across her shoulder. She even wore makeup - subtle touches that made her lips cherry red and brought out all the different colors in her eyes.  
  
She was gorgeous.  
  
“Beautiful,” Jason exclaimed. “Piper, you... you’re a knockout.”  
  
Under different circumstances, that would’ve been the happiest moment of her life. But now everyone was staring at her like she was a freak. Drew’s face was full of horror and revulsion. “No!” she cried. “Not possible!”  
  
“This isn’t me,” Piper protested. “I - don’t understand.”  
  
Chiron the centaur folded his front legs and bowed to her, and all the campers followed his example.  
  
“Hail, Piper McLean,” Chiron announced gravely, as if he were speaking at her funeral. “Daughter of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love.”

There was a moment of silence before everyone got up.

"That just leaves the sun," Rachel finally broke the silence, "which can only mean Apollo."

"It's me." I stood up. Will looked up at me, surprised and - was he scared?

"How do you know?" one of the new Hermes kids asked. I glared at him, and he shrunk in his seat. Will stood next to me, and placed a hand on my arm to stop me from cussing out a 9-or-10-or-something-close-to-that-year-old boy.

"My twin sometimes gets premonitions when she sings. It's a moderately rare Apollo gift." He turned to me. "What did you see?" "A battle. I was shooting arrows at wolves, there was a ruined mansion nearby. It wasn't anywhere near here, but I don't know specifically where, or any other details. It's going to happen in a few days." I turned to Jason. "I hereby volunteer for this quest."

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then nodded in acceptance.

Chiron trotted forward and announced the matter closed, and when the other campers started eating s'mores, I gave Will a quick kiss on the cheek and left to go to the Apollo cabin and prepare.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up early, which was a regular occurrence - at least, it had been since the war. I looked to my bedside table and saw a little golden box with a note attached to it. I carefully unfolded the paper to read it.

_To keep your spirit;_

_Go kick some monster booty_

_And play nice, Kiddo._

_A._

_P.S. Don't worry, it doesn't attract monsters when you use it. I love magic._

It must've been my father, because nobody else could write such a terrible haiku. Besides, I didn't know anybody else who calls me Kiddo. I opened the box and saw a little golden device, earbuds wrapped around it. I plugged in the end of the cord and put the buds in my ear. The only buttons it had were play/pause and +/- (probably volume). Where was I supposed to pick and change a song?

Just to try it out, I hit play. Immediately, Zombie by The Cranberries started playing - my current favorite song, and the one I'd been wanting to listen to for a while now. I frowned: if it played Zombie when I wanted to listen to that, maybe...

I focused on American Idiot - Thalia had introduced me to Green Day before they'd gone to pick up Bianca and Nico di Angelo - and I recognized the opening guitar notes. I grinned widely, and grabbed some practical clothes for the quest. A pair of moveable pants and a tank top - both black, of course - to go with my combat boots. The boots had Celestial Bronze points on the front and back.

I had quick shower and threw on the clothes over some fresh underwear. I grabbed my scissors from one of the little drawers underneath the sink and started hacking at my hair. The longest locks had grown to about three inches above my jaw, which meant it could restrict my eyesight if the wind was strong enough - and I kind of needed my eyesight to shoot arrows. When I was done, my choppy bangs hung just above my eyebrows again, and the sides of my head were once again near-buzzcut length.

I went back to my bunk, threw on a zip-up black hoodie, and checked if everything was in my backpack. I was just about to restart my new portable music box into my pocket when I felt the need to go to the edge of the forest. I'd learnt a while back to follow these sort of gut feelings as soon as possible, so I shoved it into my pocket along with the earbuds and grabbed my bow and quiver as I ran out.

I fastened the quiver as I ran, but nearly dropped it when I saw the dragon. Piper caught up to me just as I nocked an arrow.

"Leo?" she yelled.  
  
Sure enough, there he was, sitting atop a giant bronze death machine and grinning like a lunatic. Even before he landed, the camp alarm went up. A conch horn blew. All the satyrs started screaming, “Don’t kill me!” Half the camp ran outside in a mixture of pajamas and armor. The dragon set down right in the middle of the green, and Leo yelled, “It’s cool! Don’t shoot!”  
  
Hesitantly, the other archers lowered their bows. The warriors backed away, keeping their spears and swords ready. They made a loose wide ring around the metal monster. Other demigods hid behind their cabin doors or peeped out the windows. Nobody seemed anxious to get close.  
  
Cowards.

The dragon was huge. It glistened in the morning sun like a living penny sculpture - different shades of copper and bronze - a sixty-foot-long serpent with steel talons and drill-bit teeth and glowing ruby eyes. It had bat-shaped wings twice its length that unfurled like metallic sails, making a sound like coins cascading out of a slot machine every time they flapped.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” Piper muttered. I just put my arrow back in my quiver, keeping my pokerface on. The other demigods stared at us like we were insane.  
  
The dragon reared its head and shot a column of fire into the sky. Campers scrambled away and hefted their weapons, but Leo slid calmly off the dragon’s back. He held up his hands like he was surrendering, except he still had that crazy grin on his face.  
  
“People of Earth, I come in peace!” he shouted. He looked like he’d been rolling around in the campfire. His army coat and his face were smeared with soot. His hands were grease-stained, and he wore a new tool belt around his waist. His eyes were bloodshot. His curly hair was so oily it stuck up in porcupine quills, and he smelled strangely of Tabasco sauce. But he looked absolutely delighted. “Festus is just saying hello!”  
  
“That thing is dangerous!” an Ares girl shouted, brandishing her spear. “Kill it now!”

"Hey, wanna shut up?" I glared at Clarisse, who'd been the one to speak. My past friend looked at me with an emotion I couldn't decipher, but I held my ground. Charlie had been the one to work with that dragon before the explosion, and I wasn't about to let anyone harm it.  
  
“Stand down!” someone ordered.  
  
To my surprise, it was Jason. He pushed through the crowd, flanked by Annabeth and Nyssa.  
  
Jason gazed up at the dragon and shook his head in amazement. “Leo, what have you done?”  
  
“Found a ride!” Leo beamed. “You said I could go on the quest if I got you a ride. Well, I got you a class-A metallic flying bad boy! Festus can take us anywhere!”  
  
“It- has wings,” Nyssa stammered. Her jaw looked like it might drop off her face.  
  
“Yeah!” Leo said. “I found them and reattached them.”  
  
“But it never had wings. Where did you find them?”  
  
Leo hesitated, and I could tell he was hiding something.  
  
“In... the woods,” he said. “Repaired his circuits, too, mostly, so no more problems with him going haywire.”  
  
“Mostly?” Nyssa asked.  
  
The dragon’s head twitched. It tilted to one side and a stream of black liquid - maybe oil, hopefully just oil - poured out of its ear, all over Leo.  
  
“Just a few kinks to work out,” Leo said.  
  
“But how did you survive...?” Nyssa was still staring at the creature in awe. “I mean, the fire breath...”  
  
“I’m quick,” Leo said. “And lucky. Now, am I on this quest, or what?”  
  
Jason scratched his head. “You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, ‘festus’ means ‘happy’? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?”  
  
The dragon twitched and shuddered and flapped his wings.  
  
“That’s a yes, bro!” Leo said. “Now, um, I’d really suggest we get going, guys. I already picked up some supplies in the- um, in the woods. And all these people with weapons are making Festus nervous.”  
  
Jason frowned. “But we haven’t planned anything yet. We can’t just-” "Yes we can." I crossed my arms at him, a silent challenge to disagree.  
  
“Go,” Annabeth said. She was the only one who didn’t look nervous at all. Her expression was sad and wistful, like this reminded her of better times. “Jason, you’ve only got three days until the solstice now, and you should never keep a nervous dragon waiting. This is certainly a good omen. Go!”  
  
Jason nodded. Then he smiled at Piper. “You ready, partner?”  
  
Piper looked at the bronze dragon wings shining against the sky, and those talons that could’ve shredded her to pieces.  
  
“You bet,” she said.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Up high, the air was freezing cold; but the dragon’s metal hide generated so much heat, it was like we were flying in a protective bubble. The grooves in the dragon’s back were designed like high-tech saddles, so we weren’t uncomfortable at all. Leo showed us how to hook their feet in the chinks of the armor, like in stirrups, and use the leather safety harnesses cleverly concealed under the exterior plating. We sat single file: Leo in front, then Piper, then Jason, then me.  
  
Leo used the reins to steer the dragon into the sky like he’d been doing it all his life. The metal wings worked perfectly, and soon the coast of Long Island was just a hazy line behind us. We shot over Connecticut and climbed into the gray winter clouds.  
  
Leo grinned back at us. “Cool, right?”  
  
“What if we get spotted?” Piper asked.  
  
“The Mist,” Jason said. “It keeps mortals from seeing magic things. If they spot us, they’ll probably mistake us for a small plane or something.”  
  
Piper glanced over her shoulder. “You sure about that?”  
  
“No,” he admitted.

"It will." I looked over his shoulder and saw he was clutching a photo in his hand - a picture of a girl with dark hair. Thalia.  
  
I gave Jason a quizzical look, but he blushed and put the photo in his pocket. “We’re making good time. Probably get there by tonight.”  
  
Piper spoke up: “Where are we heading?”  
  
“To find the god of the North Wind,” Jason said. “And chase some storm spirits.”

We flew in silence for a moment, and I plugged in my earbuds. Another One Bites The Dust by Queen started playing and I closed my eyes for a moment, until I felt someone's gaze on me. I opened my eyes and stared right into Jason's questioning stare.

"What?" "I thought technology attracted monsters." I took the little player out of my pocket and paused it. "It's magic. My dad gave it to me. It appeared on my nightstand while I was asleep." He nodded at my bitchy tone, looking a little like he just got scolded, but I didn't care. I wasn't here to make friends.

* * * * *  
  
“Shut up, me,” Leo said aloud.  
  
“What?” Piper asked.  
  
“Nothing,” he said. “Long night. I think I’m hallucinating. It’s cool.”  
  
I raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Just joking.” Leo sounded nervous. “So what’s the plan, bro? You said something about catching wind, or breaking wind, or something?”  
  
As they flew over New England, Jason laid out the game plan: First, find some guy named Boreas and grill him for information-  
  
“His name is Boreas?” Leo had to ask. “What is he, the God of Boring?”  
  
Second, Jason continued, we had to find those venti that had attacked them at the Grand Canyon-  
  
“Can we just call them storm spirits?” Leo asked. “Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks.”  
  
And third, Jason finished, we had to find out who the storm spirits worked for, so we could find Hera and free her.  
  
“So you want to look for Dylan, the nasty storm dude, on purpose,” Leo said. “The guy who threw me off the skywalk and sucked Coach Hedge into the clouds.”  
  
“That’s about it,” Jason said. “Well... there may be a wolf involved, too. But I think she’s friendly. She probably won’t eat us, unless we show weakness.”  
  
Jason told them about his dream - the big nasty mother wolf and a burned-out house with stone spires growing out of the swimming pool.  
  
“Uh-huh,” Leo said. “But you don’t know where this place is.”  
  
“Nope,” Jason admitted.  
  
“There’s also giants,” Piper added. “The prophecy said the giants’ revenge.”  
  
“Hold on,” Leo said. “Giants - like more than one? Why can’t it be just one giant who wants revenge?”  
  
“I don’t think so,” Piper said. “I remember in some of the old Greek stories, there was something about an army of giants.”  
  
“Great,” Leo muttered. “Of course, with our luck, it’s an army. So you know anything else about these giants? Didn’t you do a bunch of myth research for that movie with your dad?”  
  
“Your dad’s an actor?” Jason asked.  
  
Leo laughed. “I keep forgetting about your amnesia. Heh. Forgetting about amnesia. That’s funny. But yeah, her dad’s Tristan McLean.”  
  
“Uh - Sorry, what was he in?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Piper said quickly. “The giants - well, there were lots of giants in Greek mythology. But if I’m thinking of the right ones, they were bad news. Huge, almost impossible to kill. They could throw mountains and stuff. I think they were related to the Titans." I nodded. "Yep. They rose from the earth after Kronos lost the war - I mean the first Titan war, thousands of years ago - and they tried to destroy Olympus. If we’re talking about the same giants-”  
  
“Chiron said it was happening again,” Jason remembered. “The last chapter. That’s what he meant. No wonder he didn’t want us to know all the details.”  
  
Leo whistled. “So... giants who can throw mountains. Friendly wolves that will eat us if we show weakness. Evil espresso drinks. Gotcha. Maybe this isn’t the time to bring up my psycho babysitter.”  
  
“Is that another joke?” I asked.  
  
Leo told us about Tía Callida, who was really Hera, and how she’d appeared to him at camp. He then told us about how his mother died, saying the machine shop collapsed. He then mentioned the strange woman in earthen robes who seemed to be asleep, and seemed to know the future.  
  
I estimated the whole state of Massachusetts passed below us before one of us spoke.  
  
“That’s... disturbing,” Piper said.  
  
“’Bout sums it up,” Leo agreed. “Thing is, everybody says don’t trust Hera. She hates demigods. And the prophecy said we’d cause death if we unleash her rage. So I’m wondering... why are we doing this?”  
  
“She chose us,” Jason said. “All three of us. We’re the first of the eight who have to gather for the Great Prophecy. This quest is the beginning of something much bigger.” I nodded. "When Percy first came to camp, his first quest set off the start of the Second Titan War. This quest carries the same energy."  
  
“Besides,” Jason continued, “helping Hera is the only way I can get back my memory. And that dark spire in my dream seemed to be feeding on Hera’s energy. If that thing unleashes a king of the giants by destroying Hera-”  
  
“Not a good trade-off,” Piper agreed. “At least Hera is on our side - mostly. Losing her would throw the gods into chaos. She’s the main one who keeps peace in the family. And a war with the giants could be even more destructive than the Titan War.”  
  
Jason nodded. “Chiron also talked about worse forces stirring on the solstice, with it being a good time for dark magic, and all - something that could awaken if Hera were sacrificed on that day. And this mistress who’s controlling the storm spirits, the one who wants to kill all the demigods-”  
  
“Might be that weird sleeping lady,” Leo finished. “Dirt Woman fully awake? Not something I want to see.”  
  
“But who is she?” Jason asked. “And what does she have to do with giants?”  
  
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Piper said in Leo's ear. “You were up all night.”

“You won’t let me fall off?”  
  
Piper patted his shoulder. “Trust me, Valdez. Beautiful people never lie.”  
  
“Right,” he muttered. He leaned forward against the warm bronze of the dragon’s neck, and closed his eyes.  
  
I turned my music back on for the rest of the flight, until Piper shook Leo awake.  
  
“We’re here,” she said.  
  
Leo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Below them, a city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plains around it were dusted with snow, but the city itself glowed warmly in the winter sunset. Buildings crowded together inside high walls like a medieval town, way older than any place Leo had seen before. In the center was something that looked like a castle.

“Tell me that’s Quebec and not Santa’s workshop,” Leo said.  
  
“Yeah, Quebec City,” Piper confirmed. “One of the oldest cities in North America. Founded around sixteen hundred or so?”  
  
Leo raised an eyebrow. “Your dad do a movie about that too?”

“I read sometimes, okay? Just because Aphrodite claimed me, doesn’t mean I have to be an airhead.”  
  
“Feisty!” Leo said. “So you know so much, what’s that castle?”  
  
“A hotel, I think.”  
  
Leo laughed. “No way.”  
  
But as we got closer, I saw she was right. The grand entrance was bustling with doormen, valets, and porters taking bags. Sleek black luxury cars idled in the drive. People in elegant suits and winter cloaks hurried to get out of the cold.  
  
“The North Wind is staying in a hotel?” Leo said. “That can’t be-”  
  
“Heads up, guys,” Jason interrupted. “We got company!”  
  
Rising from the top of the tower were two winged figures - angry angels, with nasty-looking swords.

I got my bow and arrow ready.  
  
“Steady, boy,” Leo muttered to the dragon.  
  
“I don’t like this,” Jason said. “They look like storm spirits.” "No, they're probably minor gods," I said casually.  
  
One was the size of an ox, with a bright red hockey jersey, baggy sweatpants, and black leather cleats. The guy clearly had been in too many fights, because both his eyes were black, and when he bared his teeth, several of them were missing.  
  
The other guy looked like he’d just stepped off one of the worlds suckiest 80's rock albums. His ice-white hair was long and feathered into a mullet. He wore pointy-toed leather shoes, designer pants that were way too tight, and a god-awful silk shirt with the top three buttons open. Maybe he thought he looked like a groovy love god, but the guy couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, and he had a bad case of acne.

The angels pulled up in front of the dragon and hovered there, swords at the ready.  
  
The hockey ox grunted. “No clearance.”  
  
“’Scuse me?” Leo said.  
  
“You have no flight plan on file,” explained the groovy love god. On top of his other problems, he had a French accent so bad I was sure it was fake. “This is restricted airspace.”  
  
“Destroy them?” The ox showed off his gap-toothed grin.  
  
The dragon began to hiss steam, ready to defend them. Jason summoned his golden sword, but Leo cried, “Hold on! Let’s have some manners here, boys. Can I at least find out who has the honor of destroying me?”  
  
“I am Cal!” the ox grunted. He looked very proud of himself, like he’d taken a long time to memorize that sentence.  
  
“That’s short for Calais,” the love god said. “Sadly, my brother cannot say words with more than two syllables-”  
  
“Pizza! Hockey! Destroy!” Cal offered.  
  
“- which includes his own name,” the love god finished.  
  
“I am Cal,” Cal repeated. “And this is Zethes! My brother!”  
  
“Wow,” Leo said. “That was almost three sentences, man! Way to go.”  
  
Cal grunted, obviously pleased with himself.  
  
“Stupid buffoon,” his brother grumbled. “They make fun of you. But no matter. I am Zethes, which is short for Zethes. And the ladies there-” He winked at me and Piper, but the wink was more like a facial seizure. “They can call me anything they likes. Perhaps they would like to have dinner with a famous demigod before we must destroy you?”  
  
Piper made a sound like gagging on a cough drop. “That’s... a truly horrifying offer.”  
  
“It is no problem.” Zethes wiggled his eyebrows. “We are a very romantic people, we Boreads.”  
  
“Boreads?” Jason cut in. “Do you mean, like, the sons of Boreas?”  
  
“Ah, so you’ve heard of us!” Zethes looked pleased. “We are our father’s gatekeepers. So you understand, we cannot have unauthorized people flying in his airspace on creaky dragons, scaring the silly mortal peoples.”  
  
He pointed below, and Leo saw that the mortals were starting to take notice. Several were pointing up - not with alarm, yet - more with confusion and annoyance, like the dragon was a traffic helicopter flying too low.  
  
“Which is sadly why, unless this is an emergency landing,” Zethes said, brushing his hair out of his acne-covered face, “we will have to destroy you painfully.”  
  
“Destroy!” Cal agreed, with a little more enthusiasm than Leo thought necessary.  
  
“Wait!” Piper said. “This is an emergency landing.”  
  
“Awww!” Cal looked so disappointed, Leo almost felt sorry for him.  
  
Zethes studied Piper, which of course he’d already been doing. “How does the pretty girl decide this is an emergency, then?”  
  
“We have to see Boreas. It’s totally urgent! Please?” She forced a smile, which I figured must’ve been killing her; but she still had that blessing of Aphrodite thing going on, and she looked great. Something about her voice, too - I found myself believing every word. Jason was nodding, looking absolutely convinced.  
  
Zethes picked at his silk shirt, probably making sure it was still open wide enough. “Well... I hate to disappoint a lovely lady, but you see, my sister, she would have an avalanche if we allowed you-”  
  
“And our dragon is malfunctioning!” I added. “It could crash any minute!”  
  
Festus shuddered helpfully, then turned his head and spilled gunk out of his ear, splattering a black Mercedes in the parking lot below.  
  
“No destroy?” Cal whimpered.  
  
Zethes pondered the problem. Then he gave us another spasmodic wink. “Well, you are pretty. I mean, you’re right. A malfunctioning dragon - this could be an emergency.”  
  
“Destroy them later?” Cal offered, which was probably as close to friendly as he ever got.  
  
“It will take some explaining,” Zethes decided. “Father has not been kind to visitors lately. But, yes. Come, faulty dragon people. Follow us.”  
  
The Boreads sheathed their swords and pulled smaller weapons from their belts - or at least I thought they were weapons. Then the Boreads switched them on, and I realized they were flashlights with orange cones, like the ones traffic controller guys use on a runway. Cal and Zethes turned and swooped toward the hotel’s tower.  
  
Leo turned to us. “I love these guys. Follow them?”  
  
Jason and Piper didn’t look eager.  
  
“I guess,” Jason decided. “We’re here now. But I wonder why Boreas hasn’t been kind to visitors.”  
  
“Pfft, he just hasn’t met us.” Leo whistled. “Festus, after those flashlights!”  
  
“This cannot be good,” Jason muttered, but Leo spurred the dragon downward, and they swooped in after the Boreads.  
  
We landed in what must have been the penthouse suite; but the place had been hit by a flash freeze. The entry hall had vaulted ceilings forty feet high, huge draped windows, and lush oriental carpets. A staircase at the back of the room led up to another equally massive hall, and more corridors branched off to the left and right. But the ice made the room’s beauty a little frightening. When we slid off the dragon, the carpet crunched under our feet. A fine layer of frost covered the furniture. The curtains didn’t budge because they were frozen solid, and the ice-coated windows let in weird watery light from the sunset. Even the ceiling was furry with icicles. As for the stairs, I was sure I’d slip and break my neck if we tried to climb them.  
  
“Guys,” Leo said, “fix the thermostat in here, and I would totally move in.”  
  
“Not me.” Jason looked uneasily at the staircase. “Something feels wrong. Something up there..."  
  
Festus shuddered and snorted flames. Frost started to form on his scales.  
  
“No, no, no.” Zethes marched over, though how he could walk in those pointy leather shoes, Leo had no idea. “The dragon must be deactivated. We can’t have fire in here. The heat ruins my hair.”  
  
Festus growled and spun his drill-bit teeth.  
  
“’S’okay, boy.” Leo turned to Zethes. “The dragon’s a little touchy about the whole deactivation concept. But I’ve got a better solution.”  
  
“Destroy?” Cal suggested.  
  
“No, man. You gotta stop with the destroy talk. Just wait.”  
  
“Leo,” Piper said nervously, “what are you-”  
  
“Watch and learn, beauty queen. When I was repairing Festus last night, I found all kinds of buttons. Some, you do not want to know what they do. But others... Ah, here we go.”  
  
Leo hooked his fingers behind the dragon’s left foreleg. He pulled a switch, and the dragon shuddered from head to toe. Everyone backed away as Festus folded like origami. His bronze plating stacked together. His neck and tail contracted into his body. His wings collapsed and his trunk compacted until he was a rectangular metal wedge the size of a suitcase.  
  
Leo tried to lift it, but failed. “Um... yeah. Hold on. I think- aha.”  
  
He pushed another button. A handle flipped up on the top, and wheels clicked out on the bottom.  
  
“Ta-da!” he announced. “The world’s heaviest carry-on bag!”  
  
“That’s impossible,” Jason said. “Something that big couldn’t-”  
  
“Stop!” Zethes ordered. He and Cal both drew their swords and glared at Leo.  
  
Leo raised his hands. “Okay... what’d I do? Stay calm, guys. If it bothers you that much, I don’t have to take the dragon as carry-on-”  
  
“Who are you?” Zethes shoved the point of his sword against Leo’s chest. “A child of the South Wind, spying on us?”  
  
“What? No!” Leo said. “Son of Hephaestus. Friendly blacksmith, no harm to anyone!”  
  
Cal growled. He put his face up to Leo’s. “Smell fire,” he said. “Fire is bad.”  
  
“Oh.” Leo looked nervous. “Yeah, well... my clothes are kind of singed, and I’ve been working with oil, and-”  
  
“No!” Zethes pushed Leo back at sword point. “We can smell fire, demigod. We assumed it was from the creaky dragon, but now the dragon is a suitcase. And I still smell fire... on you.”

“Hey... look... I don’t know-” He glanced at his friends desperately. “Guys, a little help?”  
  
Jason already had his gold coin in his hand. He stepped forward, his eyes on Zethes. “Look, there’s been a mistake. Leo isn’t a fire guy. Tell them, Leo. Tell them you’re not a fire guy.”  
  
“Um...”  
  
“Zethes?” Piper tried her dazzling smile again, though she looked a little too nervous and cold to pull it off. “We’re all friends here. Put down your swords and let’s talk.”  
  
“The girl is pretty,” Zethes admitted, “and of course she cannot help being attracted to my amazingness; but sadly, I cannot romance her at this time.” He poked his sword point farther into Leo’s chest.  
  
“Destroy him now?” Cal asked his brother.  
  
Zethes nodded. “Sadly, I think-”  
  
“No,” I spoke up, poker face on. “Leo’s just a son of Hephaestus. He’s no threat. I'm a child of Apollo. She's a daughter of Aphrodite. That's the son of Zeus. We’re on a peaceful mission to...”  
  
My voice faltered, because both Boreads had suddenly turned on Jason.  
  
“What did she say?” Zethes demanded. “You are the son of Zeus?”  
  
“Um... yeah,” Jason said. “That’s a good thing, right? My name is Jason.”  
  
Cal looked so surprised, he almost dropped his sword. “Can’t be Jason,” he said. “Doesn’t look the same.”  
  
Zethes stepped forward and squinted at Jason’s face. “No, he is not our Jason. Our Jason was more stylish. Not as much as me - but stylish. Besides, our Jason died millennia ago.”  
  
“Wait,” Jason said. “Your Jason... you mean the original Jason? The Golden Fleece guy?”

“Of course,” Zethes said. “We were his crewmates aboard his ship, the Argo, in the old times, when we were mortal demigods. Then we accepted immortality to serve our father, so I could look this good for all time, and my silly brother could enjoy pizza and hockey.”  
  
“Hockey!” Cal agreed.  
  
“But Jason - our Jason - he died a mortal death,” Zethes said. “You can’t be him.”  
  
“I’m not,” Jason agreed.  
  
“So, destroy?” Cal asked. Clearly the conversation was giving his two brain cells a serious workout.  
  
“No,” Zethes said regretfully. “If he is a son of Zeus, he could be the one we’ve been watching for.”  
  
“Watching for?” Leo asked. “You mean like in a good way: you’ll shower him with fabulous prizes? Or watching for like in a bad way: he’s in trouble?”  
  
A girl’s voice said, “That depends on my father’s will.”  
  
At the top stood a girl in a white silk dress. Her skin was unnaturally pale, the color of snow, but her hair was a lush mane of black, and her eyes were coffee brown. She focused on Leo with no expression, no smile, no friendliness. She curled her lip up at me a little bit.  
  
Then she looked at Jason and Piper, and seemed to understand the situation immediately.  
  
“Father will want to see the one called Jason,” the girl said.  
  
“Then it is him?” Zethes asked excitedly.  
  
“We’ll see,” the girl said. “Zethes, bring our guests.”  
  
Leo grabbed the handle of his bronze dragon suitcase.  
  
Before he could take a step, the girl froze him with a look.  
  
“Not you, Leo Valdez,” she said.  
  
“Why not?” He sounded like a whiny kindergartner.  
  
“You cannot be in the presence of my father,” the girl said. “Fire and ice - it would not be wise.”  
  
“We’re going together,” Jason insisted, putting his hand on Leo’s shoulder, “or not at all.”  
  
The girl tilted her head, like she wasn’t used to people refusing her orders. “He will not be harmed, Jason Grace, unless you make trouble. Calais, keep Leo Valdez here. Guard him, but do not kill him.” I kept my poker face on, but Grace was Thalia's last name as well. It couldn't have been a coincidence.  
  
Cal pouted. “Just a little?”  
  
“No,” the girl insisted. “And take care of his interesting suitcase, until Father passes judgment.”  
  
Jason and Piper looked at Leo, their expressions asking him a silent question: _How do you want to play this?_  
  
“It’s fine, guys,” he said. “No sense causing trouble if we don’t have to. You go ahead.”

"I'll stay with him. Make sure he doesn't die some dumb way. He'll be important later."  
  
“Listen to your friends,” the pale girl said. “Leo Valdez will be perfectly safe. I wish I could say the same for you, son of Zeus. Now come, King Boreas is waiting.”


	4. Chapter 4

"So, I'll be important later, huh?" Leo asked after the others had left. I looked at him to see a grin on his face.

"It's a gut feeling. Apollo thing. About a third of the cabin has it." I was very much aware I was being bitchy with my short answers, but I refused to open up to people other than my twin. Nico di Angelo was the only thing close to an exception, only because he was the one that most understood how I felt.

"Yeah, what are your powers? I've been wondering, can you, like, turn the sun on and off or something? Jake told me you're powerful, and Nyssa told me not to underestimate you."

I rolled my eyes. "I can talk to ravens. I can shoot an arrow pretty good. I grow slightly more powerful in direct sunlight. I can sing." "That's it? I mean, talking to animals and using a weapon is cool and all, but how does any of this make you powerful?"

I glared at him, but he didn't back down. I wasn't used to that. I decided to tell him - sort of. Most of the people at camp knew about my singing powers anyway. "Don't underestimate my voice. Aphrodite may have some charmspeakers in her cabin every now and then, but I can do better than most of them." "Show me."

I felt the gold specks in my blue eyes shine more brightly. I began singing an Ancient Greek song, a lullaby mothers would sing to their newborns, asking Hypnos to bless them with a good night's sleep. I didn't put too much magic into my song, and stopped after a few syllables, when I noticed him swaying. "That's just a small taste of that particular effect I can make my voice have." He sighed softly, still partially under the spell.

* * * * *  
  
As Khione led Jason and Piper down the stairs, I noticed that Leo’s eyes followed her. I rolled my eyes.  
  
At the bottom step, Khione turned to Piper. “You have fooled my father, girl. But you have not fooled me. We are not done. And you, Jason Grace, I will see you as a statue in the throne room soon enough.”  
  
“Boreas is right,” Jason said. “You’re a spoiled kid. See you around, ice princess.”  
  
Khione’s eyes flared pure white. For once, she seemed at a loss for words. She stormed back up the stairs - literally. Halfway up, she turned into a blizzard and disappeared.  
  
“Be careful,” Zethes warned. “She never forgets an insult.”  
  
Cal grunted in agreement. “Bad sister.”  
  
“She’s the goddess of snow,” Jason said. “What’s she going to do, throw snowballs at us?” But as he said it, I had a feeling Khione could do a whole lot worse.  
  
Leo looked like he was about to make a comment, but I beat him to it. “What happened up there?”  
  
“We’ll explain later,” Piper promised, but when she glanced at Jason, I realized she expected him to explain.  
  
Jason looked away from Piper, but I could see he was unnerved. “Yeah,” he agreed, “we’ll explain later.”  
  
“Be careful, pretty girl,” Zethes said. “The winds between here and Chicago are bad-tempered. Many other evil things are stirring. I am sorry you will not be staying. You would make a lovely ice statue, in which I could check my reflection.”  
  
“Thanks,” Piper said. “But I’d sooner play hockey with Cal.”  
  
“Hockey?” Cal’s eyes lit up.  
  
“Joking,” Piper said. “And the storm winds aren’t our worst problem, are they?”  
  
“Oh, no,” Zethes agreed. “Something else. Something worse.”  
  
“Worse,” Cal echoed.  
  
“Can you tell me?” Piper gave them a smile.  
  
This time, the charm didn’t work. The purple-winged Boreads shook their heads in unison. The hangar doors opened onto a freezing starry night, and Festus the dragon stomped his feet, anxious to fly.  
  
“Ask Aeolus what is worse,” Zethes said darkly. “He knows. Good luck.”  
  
He almost sounded like he cared what happened to them, even though a few minutes ago he’d wanted to make Piper into an ice sculpture.  
  
Cal patted Leo on the shoulder. “Don’t get destroyed,” he said, which was probably the longest sentence he’d ever attempted. “Next time - hockey. Pizza.”  
  
“Come on, guys.” Jason stared out at the dark. “Let’s go to Chicago and try not to get destroyed.”  
  
* * * * *

Jason explained the events in the Throne Room as the glow of Quebec City faded behind us.  
  
“You were amazing,” Jason told Piper.  
  
She replied in French, but I didn't understand. I spoke a few languages, but French wasn't one of them. I refused to study it after Silena passed.  
  
"What’d you say?” he asked.  
  
“I said I only talked to Boreas. It wasn’t so amazing.”  
  
“Hey,” he said, “you saved me from joining Khione’s subzero hero collection. I owe you one.”  
  
Leo passed them some sandwiches from his pack. He’d been quiet ever since they’d told him what happened. “I still can’t believe Khione,” he said. “She looked so nice.”  
  
“Trust me, man,” Jason said. “Snow may be pretty, but up close it’s cold and nasty. We’ll find you a better prom date."

We ate our sandwiches as we flew. I had no idea how Leo had stocked up on supplies, but he’d even remembered to bring veggie rations for Piper.  
  
Nobody talked. Whatever we might find in Chicago, we all knew Boreas had only let us go because he figured we were already on a suicide mission.  
  
The moon rose and stars turned overhead.

Piper leaned back against Jason’s chest behind me. He didn’t complain. 

I decided to sleep as well, as I had a feeling I'd be needing my energy soon. I huddled in on myself and closed my eyes.

When I opened them, we were falling.

A body shot past me - Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. “Not coooooool!”  
  
Somewhere above me, Jason yelled, “Piper, level out! Extend your arms and legs!”  
  
A few seconds later, they bumped into me. I held onto them as we plummeted.  
  
“We have to get Leo!” Piper shouted.  
  
Our fall slowed as Jason controlled the winds, but we still lurched up and down like the winds didn’t want to cooperate.  
  
“Gonna get rough,” Jason warned. “Hold on!”  
  
Piper screamed as we fell faster, and then,  _thump_! We slammed into another warm body - Leo, still wriggling and cursing.  
  
“Stop fighting!” Jason said. “It’s me!”  
  
“My dragon!” Leo yelled. “You gotta save Festus!”  
  
Jason was already struggling to keep the three of them aloft, and I knew there was no way he could help a fifty-ton metal dragon. But before I could try to reason with Leo, I heard an explosion below us. A fireball rolled into the sky from behind a warehouse complex, and Leo sobbed, “Festus!”  
  
Jason’s face reddened with strain as he tried to maintain an air cushion beneath us, but intermittent slow-downs were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, it felt like we were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time.  
  
As we wobbled and zigzagged, Piper could make out details of the factory complex below - warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences, and parking lots lined with snow-covered vehicles. We were still high enough so that hitting the ground would flatten them into roadkill - or skykill - when Jason groaned, “I can’t—”

And we dropped like stones.

We hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into darkness.  
  
I landed on top of Leo, and Jason on top of me. 

“Piper! Where’s Piper?”  
  
“Ow, dude!” Leo groaned. “That’s my back! I’m not a sofa! Piper, where’d you go?”  
  
“Here,” I heard her say, her voice a whimper.  
  
We reached her side in a few seconds.

Leo started to ask, “You okay...?” Then he saw her foot. “Oh no, you’re not.”  
  
“Thanks for the reassurance,” Piper groaned.  
  
“You’ll be fine,” Jason said, though Piper could hear the worry in his voice. “Leo, you got any first aid supplies?”  
  
“Yeah—yeah, sure.” He dug around in his tool belt and pulled out a wad of gauze and a roll of duct tape - both of which seemed too big for the belt’s pockets. I had noticed the tool belt yesterday morning, but I hadn’t thought to ask Leo about it. It didn’t look like anything special - just one of those wraparound leather aprons with a bunch of pockets, like a blacksmith or a carpenter might wear. And it seemed to be empty.  
  
“How did you-” Piper tried to sit up, and winced. “How did pull that stuff from an empty belt?”  
  
“Magic,” Leo said. “Haven’t figure it out completely, but I can summon just about any regular tool out of the pockets, plus some other helpful stuff.” He reached into another pocket and pulled out a little tin box. “Breath mint?”  
  
Jason snatched away the mints. “That’s great, Leo. Now, can you fix her foot?”  
  
“I’m a mechanic, man. Maybe if she was a car...” He snapped his fingers. “Wait, what was that godly healing stuff they fed you at camp - Rambo food?”  
  
“Ambrosia, dummy,” Piper said through gritted teeth. “There should be some in my bag, if it’s not crushed.”

"If we set her foot, I can try to heal her bones, but it'll take time." I spoke as Jason carefully pulled her backpack off her shoulders. He rummaged through the supplies and found a Ziploc full of smashed pastry squares like lemon bars. He broke off a piece and fed it to her.  
  
“More,” she said.  
  
I frowned. “Piper, we shouldn’t risk it. Too much could burn you up. One of you set her foot, I'll grab some nectar to put on gauze.”  
  
Piper looked queasy. “Has either of you ever done that before?”  
  
“Yeah... I think so.”  
  
Leo found an old piece of wood and broke it in half for a splint. Then I got the gauze ready as Leo prepared the duct tape.  
  
“Hold her leg still,” Jason told him. “Piper, this is going to hurt.”  
  
When Jason set the foot, Piper flinched so hard she punched Leo in the arm, and he yelled almost as much as she did. I put my hand on her forehead as Jason started working on the gauze and duct tape.  
  
“Ow,” she said.  
  
“Jeez, beauty queen!” Leo rubbed his arm. “Glad my face wasn’t there.”  
  
“Sorry,” she said. “And don’t call me ‘beauty queen,’ or I’ll punch you again.”  
  
“You both did great.” Jason found a canteen in Piper’s pack and gave her some water. She still looked like she was about to faint, so I decided to get started. We needed her on this quest.

"Piper, I need you to focus on my voice, okay? This will take a little bit, and it's going to feel weird in your ankle and any other possibly injured places, but it won't hurt." I made my voice as gentle as possible, which I hadn't done since I tried to heal Silena. This was also the least snippy and clipped sentence I'd said since the three of them met me, and I could feel the boys' eyes boring into me.

I started singing a hymn to my father, and I could feel her nausea fading. I hadn't done this in a while, so when Piper looked like she could focus again, I said I needed a break.  
  
Snowflakes fluttered through the hole in the roof, and after our meeting with Khione, snow was the last thing I wanted to see.  
  
“What happened to the dragon?” Piper asked. “Where are we?”  
  
Leo’s expression turned sullen. “I don’t know with Festus. He just jerked sideways like he hit an invisible wall and started to fall.”  
  
Leo pointed to the logo on the wall. “As far as where we are...” It was hard to see through the graffiti, but I didn't care. I needed to get my strength up, and that was difficult at night, especially since I was way too out-of-practice.  
  
“Closed car plant,” Leo said. “I’m guessing we crash-landed in Detroit.”  
  
“How far is that from Chicago?”  
  
Jason handed her the canteen. “Maybe three-fourths of the way from Quebec? The thing is, without the dragon, we’re stuck traveling overland.”  
  
“No way,” Leo said. “It isn’t safe.”  
  
“He’s right. Besides, I don’t know if I can walk. And three people - Jason, you can’t fly that many across country by yourself.”  
  
“No way,” Jason said. “Leo, are you sure the dragon didn’t malfunction? I mean, Festus is old, and-”  
  
“And I might not have repaired him right?”  
  
“I didn’t say that,” Jason protested. “It’s just - maybe you could fix it.”  
  
“I don’t know.” Leo sounded crestfallen. He pulled a few screws out of his pockets and started fiddling with them. “I’d have to find where he landed, if he’s even in one piece.”  
  
“It was my fault.” Piper said.  
  
“Piper,” Jason said gently, “you were asleep when Festus conked out. It couldn’t be your fault.”  
  
“Yeah, you’re just shaken up,” Leo agreed. He didn’t even try to make a joke at her expense. “You’re in pain. Just rest.”

Leo stood. “Look, um, Jason, Millie, why don’t you stay with her? I’ll scout around for Festus. I think he fell outside the warehouse somewhere. If I can find him, maybe I can figure out what happened and fix him.” I looked up in surprise when he called me Millie; nobody had called me that before, but more importantly, nobody I met after the war called me nicknames anymore. I quickly masked it with a pokerface.  
  
“It’s too dangerous,” Jason said. “You shouldn’t go by yourself.”  
  
“Ah, I got duct tape and breath mints. I’ll be fine,” Leo said, a little too quickly, and I realized he was a lot more shaken up than he was letting on - that could distract him, which was dangerous. “You guys just don’t run off without me.” "No. I'm coming with you. You're not going out there alone. Jason, you stay with Piper."  
  
Leo looked like he was very hesitant about the idea, but he reached into his magic tool belt, pulled out a flashlight, and we headed down the stairs, leaving Piper and Jason alone

I wished the dragon hadn't landed on the toilets.  
  
Of all the places to crash, a line of Porta-Potties would not have been my first choice. A dozen of the blue plastic boxes had been set up in the factory yard, and Festus had flattened them all. Fortunately, they hadn’t been used in a long time, and the fireball from the crash incinerated most of the contents; but still, there were some pretty gross chemicals leaking out of the wreckage. Leo had to pick his way through and try not to breathe through his nose. Heavy snow was coming down, but the dragon’s hide was still steaming hot. Of course, that didn’t bother Leo.   
  
After a few minutes climbing over Festus’s inanimate body, Leo started to get irritated.  
  
“Not my fault,” he muttered. “Festus, you’re making me look bad.”  
  
Then he opened the control panel on the dragon’s head, and Leo’s face went slack. “Oh, Festus, what the heck?”  
  
He started art it for a while, then clenched his jaw.  
  
“Right,” he muttered, brushing the snow off his shoulders.  
  
“Gimme a nylon bristle detail brush, some nitrile gloves, and maybe a can of that aerosol cleaning solvent.”  
  
The tool belt obliged. Leo began cleaning off the control disk. While he worked, snow collected on the cooling dragon. Leo had to stop from time to time to summon fire and melt it away, but he mostly worked faster than I'd ever seen anyone work.  
  
“Enough, Valdez,” he scolded himself after a few minutes of silence. “Nobody’s going to play any violins for you just because you’re not important. Fix the stupid dragon.” I frowned a little, but decided not to comment. Then I felt a tug in my gut and turned around just in time to see the ground acting weirdly.  
  
 _You’re wrong, Leo_ , a female voice said.  
  
He fumbled his brush and dropped it into the dragon’s head. He stood and looked at the ground. Snow and chemical sludge from the toilets, even the asphalt itself was shifting like it was turning to liquid. A ten-foot-wide area formed eyes, a nose, and a mouth - the giant face of a sleeping woman.  
  
She didn’t exactly speak. Her lips didn’t move. But I could hear her voice, as if the vibrations were coming through the ground, straight into my feet and resonating up my skeleton.  
  
 _They need you desperately_ , she said. _In some ways, you are the most important of the eight - like the control disk in the dragon’s brain. Without you, the power of the others means nothing. Without you, the one next to you will fail. They will never reach me, never stop me. And I will fully wake._  
  
“You.” Leo was shaking. “You killed my mom.”  
  
The face shifted. The mouth formed a sleepy smile like it was having a pleasant dream. _Ah, but Leo. I am your mother too - the First Mother. Do not oppose me. Walk away now. Let my son Porphyrion rise and become king, and I will ease your burdens. You will tread lightly on the earth._  
  
Leo grabbed the nearest thing he could find - a Porta-Potty seat - and threw it at the face. “Leave me alone!”  
  
The toilet seat sank into the liquid earth. Snow and sludge rippled, and the face dissolved.  
  
Leo stared at the ground, waiting for the face to reappear. But it didn’t. I wanted to think I’d imagined it.  
  
Then from the direction of the factory, we heard a crash - like two dump trucks slamming together. Metal crumpled and groaned, and the noise echoed across the yard. Instantly I knew that Jason and Piper were in trouble.

I nocked an arrow and got ready to head in.  
  
 _Walk away now,_ the voice had urged.  
  
“Not likely,” Leo growled. “Gimme the biggest hammer you got.”  
  
He reached into his tool belt and pulled out a three-pound club hammer with a double-faced head the size of a baked potato. Then he jumped off the dragon’s back and ran toward the warehouse, me right behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

We stopped at the doors so we could control our breathing. The voice of the earth woman still rang in our ears. I looked at his face and saw the traces of fear lingering.   
  
I don't know why, but I instinctively reached over and squeezed his hand. He looked up at me in shock, and I nodded, as if to say  _It'll be fine"._ He gave me a small but grateful smile, and we turned back to the task at hand.

Something smelled wrong - like burning motor oil and sour breath.  
  
Something not human was inside the factory. I was certain.

Somewhere on the factory floor, Piper’s voice cried out: “Leo, Cathy, help!”  
  
But I held my tongue. How could Piper have gotten off the catwalk with her broken ankle? I hadn't been able to fully heal her before I needed to stop.  
  
He slipped inside and ducked behind a cargo container. I followed him, making sure I watched were I stepped. Falling and alerting the monsters of our presence wouldn't be very heroic right now. Slowly, gripping his hammer, Leo worked his way toward the center of the room, hiding behind boxes and hollow truck chassis. Finally he reached the assembly line. He crouched behind the nearest piece of machinery - a crane with a robotic arm.  
  
Piper’s voice called out again: “Leo? Cath?” Less certain this time, but very close.  
  
Leo peeked around the machinery. Hanging directly above the assembly line, suspended by a chain from a crane on the opposite side, was a massive truck engine—just dangling thirty feet up, as if it had been left there when the factory was abandoned. Below it on the conveyor belt sat a truck chassis, and clustered around it were three dark shapes the size of forklifts. Nearby, dangling from chains on two other robotic arms, were two smaller shapes—maybe more engines, but one of them was twisting around as if it were alive.  
  
Then one of the forklift shapes rose, and I realized it was a humanoid of massive size. “Told you it was nothing,” the thing rumbled. Its voice was too deep and feral to be human.  
  
One of the other forklift-sized lumps shifted, and called out in Piper’s voice: “Leo, help me! Cathy! Help-” Then the voice changed, becoming a masculine snarl. “Bah, there’s nobody out there. No demigod could be that quiet, eh?”  
  
The first monster chuckled. “Probably ran away, if he knows what’s good for him. Or the girl was lying about a third and fourth demigod. Let’s get cooking.”  
  
Snap. A bright orange light sizzled to life - an emergency flare - and I was temporarily blinded.  
  
The two smaller things dangling from crane arms weren’t engines. They were Jason and Piper. Both hung upside down, tied by their ankles and cocooned with chains up to their necks. Piper was flailing around, trying to free herself. Her mouth was gagged, but at least she was alive. Jason didn’t look so good. He hung limply, his eyes rolled up in his head. A red welt the size of an apple had swollen over his left eyebrow.  
  
On the conveyor belt, the bed of the unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire pit. The emergency flare had ignited a mixture of tires and wood, which, from the smell of it, had been doused in kerosene. A big metal pole was suspended over the flames - a spit, Leo realized, which meant this was a cooking fire.  
  
But most terrifying of all were the cooks.  
  
Monocle Motors: that single red eye logo. Why had I been so stupid as to ignore it?  
  
Three massive humanoids gathered around the fire. Two were standing, stoking the flames. The largest one crouched with his back to Leo. The two facing him were each ten feet tall, with hairy muscular bodies and skin that glowed red in the firelight. One of the monsters wore a chain mail loincloth that looked really uncomfortable. The other wore a ragged fuzzy toga made of fiberglass insulation, which also would not have made Leo’s top ten wardrobe ideas. Other than that, the two monsters could’ve been twins. Each had a brutish face with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The cooks were Cyclopes.  
  
Leo slipped off his backpack and quietly started to unzip it.  
  
The Cyclops in the chain mail loincloth walked over to Piper, who squirmed and tried to head-butt him in the eye. “Can I take her gag off now? I like it when they scream.”  
  
The question was directed at the third Cyclops, apparently the leader. The crouching figure grunted, and Loincloth ripped the gag off Piper’s mouth.  
  
She didn’t scream. She took a shaky breath like she was trying to keep herself calm.  
  
The Cyclops in the toga poked at the fire, which was now blazing away and billowing noxious black smoke toward the ceiling. His buddy Loincloth glowered at Piper, waiting for her to do something entertaining. “Scream, girl! I like funny screaming!”  
  
When Piper finally spoke, her tone was calm and reasonable, like she was correcting a naughty puppy. “Oh, Mr. Cyclops, you don’t want to kill us. It would be much better if you let us go.”  
  
Loincloth scratched his ugly head. He turned to his friend in the fiberglass toga. “She’s kind of pretty, Torque. Maybe I should let her go.”  
  
Torque, the dude in the toga, growled. “I saw her first, Sump. I’ll let her go!” Sump and Torque started to argue, but the third Cyclops rose and shouted, “Fools!”  
  
Leo looked startled. The third Cyclops was a female. She was several feet taller than Torque or Sump, and even beefier. She wore a tent of chain mail cut like one of those sack dresses, what’d they call that - a muumuu? Yeah, the Cyclops lady had a chain mail muumuu. Her greasy black hair was matted in pigtails, woven with copper wires and metal washers. Her nose and mouth were thick and smashed together, like she spent her free time ramming her face into walls; but her single red eye glittered with evil intelligence.  
  
The woman Cyclops stalked over to Sump and pushed him aside, knocking him over the conveyor belt. Torque backed up quickly.  
  
“The girl is Venus spawn,” the lady Cyclops snarled. “She’s using charmspeak on you.”  
  
Piper started to say, “Please, ma’am-”  
  
“Rarr!” The lady Cyclops grabbed Piper around the waist. “Don’t try your pretty talk on me, girl! I’m Ma Gasket! I’ve eaten heroes tougher than you for lunch!”  
  
I feared Piper would get crushed, but Ma Gasket just dropped her and let her dangle from her chain. Then she started yelling at Sump about how stupid he was.  
  
Leo’s hands worked furiously. He twisted wires and turned switches, then, when it looked like he was finished, he crept over to the next robotic arm while the Cyclopes were talking.  
  
“-eat her last, Ma?” Sump was saying.  
  
“Idiot!” Ma Gasket yelled, and Leo realized Sump and Torque must be her sons. If so, ugly definitely ran in the family. “I should’ve thrown you out on the streets when you were babies, like proper Cyclops children. You might have learned some useful skills. Curse my soft heart that I kept you!”  
  
“Soft heart?” Torque muttered.  
  
“What was that, you ingrate?”  
  
“Nothing, Ma. I said you got a soft heart. We get to work for you, feed you, file your toenails-”  
  
“And you should be grateful!” Ma Gasket bellowed. “Now, stoke the fire, Torque! And Sump, you idiot, my case of salsa is in the other warehouse. Don’t tell me you expect me to eat these demigods without salsa!”  
  
“Yes, Ma,” Sump said. “I mean no, Ma. I mean-”  
  
“Go get it!” Ma Gasket picked up a nearby truck chassis and slammed it over Sump’s head. Sump crumpled to his knees, but he managed to push the chassis off his head. Then he staggered to his feet and ran off to fetch the salsa.  
  
Now’s the time, I thought. While they’re separated.

I quickly thought about where I could get the best shot from. I started sneaking over to a large pick-up that was missing a wheel, and crouched behind it. I took one of my larger, jagged arrows - ones that are more difficult to fire, and even more difficult to get a hit with.

Suddenly, Piper gasped.  
  
Ma Gasket turned to her. “What’s the matter, girl? So fragile I broke you?”  
  
“I think it’s my ribs, ma’am. If I’m busted up inside, I’ll taste terrible.”  
  
Ma Gasket bellowed with laughter. “Good one. The last hero we ate - remember him, Torque? Son of Mercury, wasn’t he?”  
  
“Yes, Ma,” Torque said. “Tasty. Little bit stringy.”  
  
“He tried a trick like that. Said he was on medication. But he tasted fine!”  
  
“Tasted like mutton,” Torque recalled. “Purple shirt. Talked in Latin. Yes, a bit stringy, but good.”  
  
I froze. Apparently, Piper was having the same thought I was, because she asked, “Purple shirt? Latin?”  
  
“Good eating,” Ma Gasket said fondly. “Point is, girl, we’re not as dumb as people think! We’re not falling for those stupid tricks and riddles, not us northern Cyclopes.”  
  
Piper kept talking, laying on the praise. “Oh, I’ve heard about the northern Cyclopes!” Which I figured was minotaur dung - as Thalia would put it - but she sounded convincing. “I never knew you were so big and clever!”  
  
“Flattery won’t work either,” Ma Gasket said, though she sounded pleased. “It’s true, you’ll be breakfast for the best Cyclopes around.”  
  
“But aren’t Cyclopes good?” Piper asked. “I thought you made weapons for the gods.”  
  
“Bah! I’m very good. Good at eating people. Good at smashing. And good at building things, yes, but not for the gods. Our cousins, the elder Cyclopes, they do this, yes. Thinking they’re so high and mighty ’cause they’re a few thousand years older. Then there’s our southern cousins, living on islands and tending sheep. Morons! But we Hyperborean Cyclopes, the northern clan, we’re the best! Founded Monocle Motors in this old factory - the best weapons, armor, chariots, fuel-efficient SUVs! And yet - bah! Forced to shut down. Laid off most of our tribe. The war was too quick. Titans lost. No good! No more need for Cyclops weapons.” I had half a mind to charge at her in blind rage, but I stood my ground. I took three calming breaths and regained focus.  
  
“Oh, no,” Piper sympathized. “I’m sure you made some amazing weapons.”  
  
Torque grinned. “Squeaky war hammer!” He picked up a large pole with an accordion-looking metal box on the end.  
  
He slammed it against the floor and the cement cracked, but there was also a sound like the world’s largest rubber ducky getting stomped.  
  
“Terrifying,” Piper said.  
  
Torque looked pleased. “Not as good as the exploding ax, but this one can be used more than once.”  
  
“Can I see it?” Piper asked. “If you could just free my hands-”  
  
Torque stepped forward eagerly, but Ma Gasket said, “Stupid! She’s tricking you again. Enough talk! Slay the boy first before he dies on his own. I like my meat fresh.”  
  
“Hey, wait,” Piper said, trying to get the Cyclopes’ attention. “Hey, can I just ask—”  
  
Wires sparked in Leo’s hand. The Cyclopes froze and turned in his direction. Then Torque picked up a truck and threw it at him.  
  
Leo rolled as the truck steamrolled over the machinery. If he’d been a half-second slower, he would’ve been smashed.  
  
He got to his feet, and Ma Gasket spotted him. She yelled, “Torque, you pathetic excuse for a Cyclops, get him!”  
  
Torque barreled toward him. Leo frantically gunned the toggle on his makeshift remote.  
  
Torque was fifty feet away. Twenty feet.  
  
Then the first robotic arm whirred to life. A three-ton yellow metal claw slammed the Cyclops in the back so hard, he landed flat on his face. Before Torque could recover, the robotic hand grabbed him by one leg and hurled him straight up.  
  
“AHHHHH!” Torque rocketed into the gloom. The ceiling was too dark and too high up to see exactly what happened, but judging from the harsh metal clang, Leo guessed the Cyclops had hit one of the support girders.  
  
Torque never came down. Instead, yellow dust rained to the floor. Torque had disintegrated.  
  
Ma Gasket stared at Leo in shock. “My son... You... You...”  
  
As if on cue, Sump lumbered into the firelight with a case of salsa. “Ma, I got the extra-spicy-”  
  
He never finished his sentence. I leaped, kicking myself up on a tractor wheel, and shot him in the middle of his huge pupil from mid-air. I landed on top of the pick-up and whistled sharply - the command that made the arrow shoot Celestial Bronze Spikes outwards. I grinned - those nights designing different arrow with Charlie payed off.  
  
Two Cyclopes down. Ma Gasket looked back and forth between me and Leo. She grabbed the nearest crane arm and ripped it off its pedestal with a savage roar. “You busted my boys! Only I get to bust my boys!”  
  
Leo punched a button, and the two remaining arms swung into action. Ma Gasket caught the first one and tore it in half. The second arm smacked her in the head, but that only seemed to make her mad. She grabbed it by the clamps, ripped it free, and swung it like a baseball bat. It missed Piper and Jason by an inch. Then Ma Gasket let it go - spinning it toward Leo. He yelped and rolled to one side as it demolished the machine next to him.  
  
She stood about twenty feet from Leo now, next to the cooking fire. Her fists were clenched, her teeth bared. She looked ridiculous in her chain mail muumuu and her greasy pigtails - but given the murderous glare in her huge red eye and the fact that she was twelve feet tall, we weren't laughing.  
  
“Any more tricks, demigod?” Ma Gasket demanded.  
  
Leo glanced up, and looked to be in deep thought for a few moments. I followed his gaze - one more step and Ma Gasket would be underneath a suspended engine - and got two regular arrows ready.  
  
“Heck, yeah, I got tricks!” Leo raised his remote control. “Take one more step, and I’ll destroy you with fire!”  
  
Ma Gasket laughed. “Would you? Cyclopes are immune to fire, you idiot. But if you wish to play with flames, let me help!”  
  
She scooped red-hot coals into her bare hands and flung them at Leo. They landed all around his feet.  
  
“You missed,” he said incredulously. Then Ma Gasket grinned and picked up a barrel next to the truck. I just had time to read the stenciled word on the side - kerosene - before Ma Gasket threw it. The barrel split on the floor in front of him, spilling lighter fluid everywhere.  
  
Coals sparked. Leo closed his eyes, and I screamed, “No!”  
  
A firestorm erupted around him. When Leo opened his eyes he was bathed in flames swirling twenty feet into the air.  
  
Ma Gasket shrieked with delight, but the kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.  
  
Piper gasped. “Leo?”  
  
Ma Gasket looked astonished. “You live?” Then she took one extra step forward, right underneath the engine block. . “What are you?”  
  
“The son of Hephaestus,” Leo said. “And I warned you I’d destroy you with fire.”  
  
He pointed one finger in the air and shot a bolt of white-hot flames at the chain suspending the engine block above the Cyclops’s head. While she was occupied, looking at Leo, I shot both arrows - not enough to fatally wound a Cyclops, but enough to nail two giant feet to the floor.  
  
Ma Gasket hissed like they stung, but laughed when the flames died. “An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It’s been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You’ll make a spicy appetizer!”  
  
The chain snapped and the engine block fell, deadly and silent.  
  
“I don’t think so,” Leo said.  
  
Ma Gasket didn’t even have time to look up.  
  
Smash! No more Cyclops - just a pile of dust under a five-ton engine block.  
  
“Not immune to engines, huh?” Leo said. “Boo-yah!”  
  
Then he fell to his knees. Piper was calling his name, but I went over and checked his pulse - he was alive, just exhausted. I trickled a little nectar into this mouth whilst humming softly, which seemed to do the trick.

“Leo! Are you all right? Can you move?”  
  
He stumbled to his feet.

It took us a long time to get Piper down from her chains. Then together we lowered Jason, who was still unconscious. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.  
  
“Yeah, he’s got a nice thick skull,” Leo said. “I think he’s gonna be fine.”  
  
“Thank god,” Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. “How did you - the fire - have you always...?”  
  
Leo looked down. “Always,” he said. “I’m a freaking menace. Sorry, I should’ve told you guys sooner but-”  
  
“Sorry?” Piper punched his arm. When he looked up, she was grinning. “That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?”  
  
Leo blinked. He started to smile, but I was focused on something next to Piper’s foot.  
  
Yellow dust - the powdered remains of one of the Cyclopes, maybe Torque - was shifting across the floor like an invisible wind was pushing it back together.  
  
“They’re forming again,” Leo said. “Look.”  
  
I narrowed my eyes at the dust. “That’s not possible. Monsters dissipate when they’re killed. They go back to Tartarus and can’t return for a long time - a few weeks minimum, centuries if you're lucky.”  
  
“Well, nobody told the dust that.” Leo watched as it collected into a pile, then very slowly spread out, forming a shape with arms and legs.  
  
“Oh, god.” Piper turned pale. “Boreas said something about this - the earth yielding up horrors. ‘When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.’ How long do you think we have?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said. “But we need to get out of here.”  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**JASON**

I dreamed I was wrapped in chains, hanging upside down like a hunk of meat. Everything hurt - my arms, my legs, my chest, my head. Especially my head. It felt like an overinflated water balloon.  
  
“If I’m dead,” he murmured, “why does it hurt so much?”  
  
“You’re not dead, my hero,” said a woman’s voice. “It is not your time. Come, speak with me.”  
  
My thoughts floated away from my body. I heard monsters yelling, my friends screaming, fiery explosions, and the voice of an angel, but it all seemed to be happening on another plane of existence - getting farther and farther away.  
  
I found myself standing in an earthen cage. Tendrils of tree roots and stone whirled together, confining me. Outside the bars, I could see the floor of a dry reflecting pool, another earthen spire growing at the far end, and above us, the ruined red stones of a burned-out house.  
  
Next to me in the cage, a woman sat cross-legged in black robes, her head covered by a shroud. She pushed aside her veil, revealing a face that was proud and beautiful - but also hardened with suffering.  
  
“Hera,” I said.  
  
“Welcome to my prison,” said the goddess. “You will not die today, Jason. Your friends will see you through - for now.”

“For now?” I asked.  
  
Hera gestured at the tendrils of her cage. “There are worse trials to come. The very earth stirs against us.”  
  
“You’re a goddess,” I said. “Why can’t you just escape?”  
  
Hera smiled sadly. Her form began to glow, until her brilliance filled the cage with painful light. The air hummed with power, molecules splitting apart like a nuclear explosion. I suspected if I were actually there in the flesh, I would’ve been vaporized.  
  
The cage should’ve been blasted to rubble. The ground should’ve split and the ruined house should’ve been leveled. But when the glow died, the cage hadn’t budged. Nothing outside the bars had changed. Only Hera looked different - a little more stooped and tired.  
  
“Some powers are even greater than the gods,” she said. “I am not easily contained. I can be in many places at once. But when the greater part of my essence is caught, it is like a foot in a bear trap, you might say. I can’t escape, and I am concealed from the eyes of the other gods. Only you can find me, and I grow weaker by the day.”  
  
“Then why did you come here?” I asked. “How were you caught?”  
  
The goddess sighed. “I could not stay idle. Your father Jupiter believes he can withdraw from the world, and thus lull our enemies back to sleep. He believes we Olympians have become too involved in the affairs of mortals, in the fates of our demigod children, especially since we agreed to claim them all after the war. He believes this is what has caused our enemies to stir. That is why he closed Olympus.”  
  
“But you don’t agree.”  
  
“No,” she said. “Often I do not understand my husband’s moods or his decisions, but even for Zeus, this seemed paranoid. I cannot fathom why he was so insistent and so convinced. It was... unlike him. As Hera, I might have been content to follow my lord’s wishes. But I am also Juno.” Her image flickered, and Jason saw armor under her simple black robes, a goatskin cloak - the symbol of a Roman warrior - across her bronze mantle. “Juno Moneta they once called me - Juno, the One Who Warns. I was guardian of the state, patron of Eternal Rome. I could not sit by while the descendants of my people were attacked. I sensed danger at this sacred spot. A voice-” She hesitated. “A voice told me I should come here. Gods do not have what you might call a conscience, nor do we have dreams; but the voice was like that - soft and persistent, warning me to come here. And so the same day Zeus closed Olympus, I slipped away without telling him my plans, so he could not stop me. And I came here to investigate.”  
  
“It was a trap,” I guessed.  
  
The goddess nodded. “Only too late did I realize how quickly the earth was stirring. I was even more foolish than Jupiter - a slave to my own impulses. This is exactly how it happened the first time. I was taken captive by the giants, and my imprisonment started a war. Now our enemies rise again. The gods can only defeat them with the help of the greatest living heroes. And the one whom the giants serve... she cannot be defeated at all - only kept asleep.”  
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
“You will soon,” Hera said.  
  
The cage began to constrict, the tendrils spiraling tighter. Hera’s form shivered like a candle flame in the breeze. Outside the cage, I could see shapes gathering at the edge of the pool - lumbering humanoids with hunched backs and bald heads. Unless Jason’s eyes were tricking him - they had more than one set of arms. He heard wolves too, but not the wolves he’d seen with Lupa. He could tell from their howls this was a different pack - hungrier, more aggressive, out for blood.  
  
“Hurry, Jason,” Hera said. “My keepers approach, and you begin to wake. I will not be strong enough to appear to you again, even in dreams.”  
  
“Wait,” I said. “Boreas told us you’d made a dangerous gamble. What did he mean?”  
  
Hera’s eyes looked wild, and I wondered if she really had done something crazy.  
  
“An exchange,” she said. “The only way to bring peace. The enemy counts on our divisions, and if we are divided, we will be destroyed. You are my peace offering, Jason - a bridge to overcome millennia of hatred.”  
  
“What? I don’t-”  
  
“I cannot tell you more,” Hera said. “You have only lived this long because I have taken your memory. Find this place. Return to your starting point. Your sister will help.”  
  
“Thalia?”  
  
The scene began to dissolve. “Good-bye, Jason. Beware Chicago. Your most dangerous mortal enemy waits there. If you are to die, it will be by her hand.”  
  
“Who?” I demanded.  
  
But Hera’s image faded, and I awoke, coming closer and closer to that angelic voice I'd heard earlier.  
  
My eyes snapped open. “Cyclops!”  
  
“Whoa, sleepyhead.” Piper sat behind me on the bronze dragon, holding my waist to keep him balanced. Cath was in front of me, sitting face-to-face with me. I realized the angelic voice was her singing. Leo sat in front, driving. We flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.  
  
“D-Detroit,” I stammered. “Didn’t we crash-land? I thought-”  
  
“It’s okay,” Leo said. “We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?”  
  
My head throbbed. I remembered the factory, then walking down the catwalk, then a creature looming over me - a face with one eye, a massive fist - and everything went black.  
  
“How did you- the Cyclops-”  
  
“Leo ripped them apart,” Piper said. “He was amazing. He can summon fire-”  
  
“It was nothing,” Leo said quickly.  
  
Piper laughed. “Shut up, Valdez. I’m going to tell him. Get over it.”  
  
And she did - how Leo and Cath defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon’s wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they’d started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.  
  
I was impressed. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit and a bow and arrows? Not bad. It didn’t exactly scare me to hear how close he’d come to death, but it did make me feel horrible. I’d stepped right into an ambush and spent the whole fight knocked out while my friends fended for themselves. What kind of quest leader was he?  
  
When Piper told me about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin, I felt like my head was going to explode. A son of Mercury...  I felt like I should know that kid, but the name was missing from my mind.  
  
“I’m not alone, then,” I said. “There are others like me.”  
  
“Jason,” Piper said, “you were never alone. You’ve got us.”  
  
“I- I know... but something Hera said. I was having a dream...”  
  
I told them what I’d seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.  
  
“An exchange?” Piper asked. “What does that mean?”  
  
I shook my head. “But Hera’s gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way-”  
  
“Or save us,” Piper said hopefully. “That bit about the sleeping enemy - that sounds like the lady Leo told us about.”  
  
Leo cleared his throat. “About that... she kind of appeared to us back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge.”  
  
I wasn’t sure I’d heard that right. “Did you say... Porta-Potty?”  
  
Leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. “I don’t know if she’s completely unkillable,” he said, “but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, ‘Pfft, right, I’m gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.’”  
  
“She’s trying to divide us.” Piper slipped her arms from around my waist. I could sense her tension without even looking at her.  
  
“What’s wrong?” I asked.  
  
“I just... Why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?”  
  
“Enceladus?” Cath tensed and squinted at Piper. I didn’t think I’d heard that name before. I also didn't think I'd ever seen Cath this angry.  
  
“I mean...” Piper’s voice quavered. “That’s one of the giants. Just one of the names I could remember.”  
  
I got the feeling there was a lot more bothering her, but I decided he not to press her. She’d had a rough morning.  
  
Leo scratched his head. “Well, I dunno about Enchiladas-”  
  
“Enceladus,” Cath snapped.  
  
“Whatever. But Old Potty Face mentioned another name. Porpoise Fear, or something?”  
  
“Porphyrion.” Cath said. “He was the giant king.”  
  
“I’m going to take wild guess,” he said. “In the old stories, Porphyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot in the war between the giants and the gods.”  
  
“That's what we're usually told,” Cath agreed, her tone back to as clipped as when we just met her. “But those myths are really garbled and conflicted. It’s almost like nobody wanted that story to survive. I just know there was a war, and the giants were almost impossible to kill.”  
  
“Heroes and gods had to work together,” I said. “That’s what Hera told me.”  
  
“Kind of hard to do,” Leo grumbled, “if the gods won’t even talk to us.”  
  
We flew west, and I became lost in my thoughts - all of them bad. I wasn’t sure how much time passed before the dragon dove through a break in the clouds, and below us, glittering in the winter sun, was a city at the edge of a massive lake. A crescent of skyscrapers lined the shore. Behind us, stretching out to the western horizon, was a vast grid of snow-covered neighborhoods and roads.  
  
“Chicago,” I said.  
  
I thought about what Hera had said in my dream. My worst mortal enemy would be waiting here. If I was going to die, it would be by her hand.  
  
“One problem down,” Leo said. “We got here alive. Now, how do we find the storm spirits?”  
  
I saw a flash of movement below us. At first I thought it was a small plane, but it was too small, too dark and fast. The thing spiraled toward the skyscrapers, weaving and changing shape - and, just for a moment it became the smoky figure of a horse.  
  
“How about we follow that one,” I suggested, “and see where it goes?”

I was afraid we'd lose our target. The ventus moved like... well, like the wind.  
  
“Speed up!” I urged. Cath, who was still sitting in reverse (and holding onto a chink in Festus' armor for dear life), glared at me.  
  
“Bro,” Leo said, “if I get any closer, he’ll spot us. Bronze dragon ain’t exactly a stealth plane.”  
  
“Slow down!” Piper yelped.  
  
The storm spirit dove into the grid of downtown streets. Festus tried to follow, but his wingspan was way too wide. His left wing clipped the edge of a building, slicing off a stone gargoyle before Leo pulled up.

“Get above the buildings,” I suggested. “We’ll track him from there.”

“You want to drive this thing?” Leo grumbled, but he did what I asked.  
  
After a few minutes, I spotted the storm spirit again, zipping through the streets with no apparent purpose - blowing over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making cars swerve.  
  
“Oh great,” Piper said. “There’re two.”  
  
She was right. A second ventus blasted around the corner of the Renaissance Hotel and linked up with the first. They wove together in a chaotic dance, shooting to the top of a skyscraper, bending a radio tower, and diving back down toward the street.  
  
“Those guys do not need any more caffeine,” Leo said.  
  
“I guess Chicago’s a good place to hang out,” Piper said. “Nobody’s going to question a couple more evil winds.”  
  
“More than a couple,” I said. “Look.”  
  
The dragon circled over a wide avenue next to a lake-side park. Storm spirits were converging - at least a dozen of them, whirling around a big public art installation.  
  
“Which one do you think is Dylan?” Leo asked. “I wanna throw something at him.”  
  
But I focused on the art installation. The closer we got to it, the faster my heart beat. It was just a public fountain, but it was unpleasantly familiar. Two five-story monoliths rose from either end of a long granite reflecting pool. The monoliths seemed to be built of video screens, flashing the combined image of a giant face that spewed water into the pool.  
  
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it looked like a high-tech, super-size version of that ruined reflecting pool I’d seen in his dreams, with those two dark masses jutting from either end. As I watched, the image on the screens changed to a woman’s face with her eyes closed.  
  
“Leo...” I said nervously.  
  
“I see her,” Leo said. “I don’t like her, but I see her.”  
  
Then the screens went dark. The venti swirled together into a single funnel cloud and skittered across the fountain, kicking up a waterspout almost as high as the monoliths. They got to its center, popped off a drain cover, and disappeared underground.  
  
“Did they just go down a drain?” Piper asked. “How are we supposed to follow them?”  
  
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Leo said. “That fountain thing is giving me seriously bad vibes. And aren’t we supposed to, like, beware the earth?”  
  
I felt the same way, but we had to follow. It was our only way forward. We had to find Hera, and we now had only two days until the solstice.  
  
“Put us down in that park,” I suggested. “We’ll check it out on foot.”  
  
Festus landed in an open area between the lake and the skyline. The signs said Grant Park, and I imagined it would’ve been a nice place in the summer; but now it was a field of ice, snow, and salted walkways. The dragon’s hot metal feet hissed as they touched down. Festus flapped his wings unhappily and shot fire into the sky, but there was no one around to notice. The wind coming off the lake was bitter cold. Anyone with sense would be inside. My eyes stung so badly, I could barely see.  
  
We dismounted, and Festus the dragon stomped his feet. One of his ruby eyes flickered, so it looked like he was blinking.  
  
“Is that normal?” Cath asked, a single brow raised.

Leo pulled a rubber mallet from his tool bag. He whacked the dragon’s bad eye, and the light went back to normal. “Yes,” Leo said. “Festus can’t hang around here, though, in the middle of the park. They’ll arrest him for loitering. Maybe if I had a dog whistle...”  
  
He rummaged in his tool belt, but came up with nothing.  
  
“Too specialized?” he guessed. “Okay, give me a safety whistle. They got that in lots of machine shops.”  
  
This time, Leo pulled out a big plastic orange whistle. “Coach Hedge would be jealous! Okay, Festus, listen.” Leo blew the whistle. The shrill sound probably rolled all the way across Lake Michigan. “You hear that, come find me, okay? Until then, you fly wherever you want. Just try not to barbecue any pedestrians.”  
  
The dragon snorted - hopefully in agreement. Then he spread his wings and launched into the air.  
  
Piper took one step and winced. “Ah!”  
  
“Your ankle?” I felt bad I’d forgotten about her injury back in the Cyclops factory. “That nectar we gave you might be wearing off.”  
  
“It’s fine.” She shivered, and I remembered my promise to get her a new snowboarding coat. I hoped I lived long enough to find her one. She took a few more steps with only a slight limp, but I could tell she was trying not to grimace.  
  
“Let’s get out of the wind,” I suggested.  
  
“Down a drain?” Piper shuddered. “Sounds cozy.”  
  
We wrapped themselves up as best we could and headed toward the fountain.  
  
* * *  
  
According to the plaque, it was called Crown Fountain. All the water had emptied out except for a few patches that were starting to freeze. It didn’t seem right to me that the fountain would have water in it in the winter anyway. Then again, those big monitors had flashed the face of their mysterious enemy Dirt Woman. Nothing about this place was right.  
  
We stepped to the center of the pool. No spirits tried to stop us. The giant monitor walls stayed dark. The drain hole was easily big enough for a person, and a maintenance ladder led down into the gloom.  
  
I went first. As I climbed, I braced himself for horrible sewer smells, but it wasn’t that bad. The ladder dropped into a brickwork tunnel running north to south. The air was warm and dry, with only a trickle of water on the floor.  
  
Piper, Cath and Leo climbed down after him.  
  
“Are all sewers this nice?” Piper wondered.  
  
“No,” Leo said. “Trust me.”  
  
Jason frowned. “How do you know-”  
  
“Hey, man, I ran away six times. I’ve slept in some weird places, okay? Now, which way do we go?”  
  
I tilted my head, listening, then pointed south. “That way.”  
  
“How can you be sure?” Piper asked.  
  
“There’s a draft blowing south,” I said. “Maybe the venti went with the flow.”  
  
It wasn’t much of a lead, but nobody offered anything better.  
  
Unfortunately, as soon as we started walking, Piper stumbled. I had to catch her.  
  
“Stupid ankle,” she cursed.  
  
“We need to rest,” Cath decided. “We could all use it. We’ve been going nonstop for over a day." I nodded. "Leo, can you pull any food from that tool belt besides breath mints?”  
  
“Thought you’d never ask. Chef Leo is on it!”  
  
Piper and I sat on a brick ledge while Leo shuffled through his pack. Cath stood a few feet away from us and plugged her earbuds back in. She fiddled with the golden device for a little before she sat down next to Piper.

I was glad to rest. I was still tired and dizzy, and hungry, too. But mostly, I wasn’t eager to face whatever lay ahead. I turned the gold coin in my fingers.  
  
 _If you are to die_ , Hera had warned, _it will be by her hand._  
  
Whoever “her” was. After Khione, the Cyclops mother, and the weird sleeping lady, the last thing I needed was another psycho villainess in his life.  
  
“It wasn’t your fault,” Cath spoke up, somehow bitter and gentle at the same time.  
  
I looked at her blankly. “What?”  
  
“Getting jumped by the Cyclopes,” Piper said. “It wasn’t your fault.”  
  
I looked down at the coin in my palm. “I was stupid. I left you alone and walked into a trap. I should’ve known...”  
  
I didn’t finish. There were too many things I should have known - who I was, how to fight monsters, how Cyclopes lured their victims by mimicking voices and hiding in shadows and a hundred other tricks. All that information was supposed to be in my head. I could feel the places it should be - like empty pockets. If Hera wanted me to succeed, why had she stolen the memories that could help me? She claimed my amnesia had kept me alive, but that made no sense. I was starting to understand why Annabeth had wanted to leave the goddess in her cage.  
  
“Hey.” Piper nudged his arm. “Cut yourself some slack. Just because you’re the son of Zeus doesn’t mean you’re a one-man army.”  
  
A few feet away, Leo lit a small cooking fire. He hummed as he pulled supplies out of his pack and his tool belt.  
  
In the firelight, Piper’s eyes seemed to dance. I had been studying them for days now, and still couldn’t decide what color they were.  
  
“I know this must suck for you,” I said. “Not just the quest, I mean. The way I appeared on the bus, the Mist messing with your mind, and making you think I was... you know.”  
  
She dropped her gaze. “Yeah, well. None of us asked for this. It’s not your fault.”  
  
She tugged at the little braids on each side of her head. Again, I thought how glad I was that she’d lost the Aphrodite blessing. With the makeup and the dress and the perfect hair, she’d looked about twenty-five, glamorous, and completely out of his league. I’d never thought of beauty as a form of power, but that’s the way Piper had seemed - powerful.  
  
I liked regular Piper better - someone I could hang out with. But the weird thing was, I couldn’t quite get that other image out of his head. It hadn’t been an illusion. That side of Piper was there too. She just did her best to hide it.  
  
“Back in the factory,” I said, “you were you going to say something about your dad.”  
  
She traced her finger over the bricks, almost like she was writing out a scream she didn’t want to vocalize. “Was I?”  
  
“Piper,” I said, “he’s in some kind of trouble, isn’t it?”  
  
Over at the fire, Leo stirred some sizzling bell peppers and meat in a pan. “Yeah, baby! Almost there.”  
  
Piper looked on the verge of tears. “Jason... I can’t talk about it.”  
  
“We’re your friends. Let us help.”  
  
That seemed to make her feel worse. She took a shaky breath. “I wish I could, but-”  
  
“And bingo!” Leo announced.  
  
He came over with four plates stacked on his arms like a waiter. I had no idea where he’d gotten all the food, or how he’d put it together so fast, but it looked amazing: pepper and beef tacos with chips and salsa.  
  
“Leo,” Piper said in amazement. “How did you-?”  
  
“Chef Leo’s Taco Garage is fixing you up!” he said proudly. “And by the way, it’s tofu, not beef, beauty queen, so don’t freak. Just dig in!”  
  
I wasn’t sure about tofu, but the tacos tasted as good as they smelled. While we ate, Leo tried to lighten the mood and joke around. I was grateful Leo and Cath were with us. It made being with Piper a little less intense and uncomfortable. At the same time, I kind of wished I was alone with her; but I chided himself for feeling that way.  
  
After Piper ate, I encouraged her to get some sleep. She hesitated at first, but Cath hummed a few notes. Without another word, she curled up and put her head in my lap. In two seconds she was snoring.  
  
I looked up at Leo, who was glancing between me and Cath and obviously trying not to laugh. I was just impressed at Cath. I have no idea how she did that, but I felt like if the humming had been directed at me, I would've passed out immediately. She did looked absolutely drained at the effort, but she made no move to sleep.  
  
We sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking lemonade Leo had made from canteen water and powdered mix.  
  
“Good, huh?” Leo grinned.  
  
“You should start a stand,” Jason said. “Make some serious coin.”

But as I stared at the embers of the fire, something began to bother me. “Leo... about this fire stuff you can do... is it true?”  
  
Leo’s smile faltered. “Yeah, well...” He opened his hand. A small ball of flame burst to life, dancing across his palm.  
  
“That is so cool,” I said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”  
  
Leo closed his hand and the fire went out. “Didn’t want to look like a freak.”  
  
“I have lightning and wind powers,” I reminded him. “Piper can turn beautiful and charm people into giving her BMWs. Cath can make people fall asleep by humming. You’re no more a freak than we are. And, hey, maybe you can fly, too. Like jump off a building and yell, ‘Flame on!’”  
  
Leo snorted. “If I did that, you would see a flaming kid falling to his death, and I would be yelling something a little stronger than ‘Flame on!’ Trust me, Hephaestus cabin doesn’t see fire powers as cool. Nyssa told me they’re super rare. When a demigod like me comes around, bad things happen. Really bad.”  
  
“They never think about how maybe it’s the other way around,” Cath spoke up. She sounded a little sluggish from sleepiness, but she looked sure of herself. “How maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that’s when they’re needed most.”  
  
Leo cleared away the plates. “Maybe. But I’m telling you... it’s not always a gift.”  
  
I fell silent. “You’re talking about your mom, aren’t you? The night she died.”  
  
Leo didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The fact that he was quiet, not joking around - that told us enough.  
  
“Leo, her death wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened that night - it wasn’t because you could summon fire. This Dirt Woman, whoever she is, has been trying to ruin you for years, mess up your confidence, take away everything you care about. She’s trying to make you feel like a failure. You’re not. You’re important.”  
  
“That’s what she said.” Leo looked up, his eyes full of pain. “She said I was meant to do something important - something that would make or break that big prophecy about the eight demigods. That’s what scares me. I don’t know if I’m up to it.”  
  
I wanted to tell him everything would be all right, but it would’ve sounded fake. I didn’t know what would happen. We were demigods, which meant sometimes things didn’t end okay. Sometimes you got eaten by the Cyclops.  
  
If you asked most kids, “Hey, you want to summon fire or lightning or have a magical voice?” they’d think it sounded pretty cool. But those powers went along with hard stuff, like sitting in a sewer in the middle of winter, running from monsters, losing your memory, watching your friends almost get cooked, and having dreams that warned you of your own death.  
  
Leo poked at the remnants of his fire, turning over red-hot coals with his bare hand. “You ever wonder about the other four demigods? I mean... if we’re four of the ones from the Great Prophecy, who are the others? Where are they?”  
  
I had thought about it, all right, but I tried to push it out of my mind. I had a horrible suspicion that I would be expected to lead those other demigods, and I was afraid I would fail.  
  
 _You’ll tear each other apart,_ Boreas had promised.  
  
I had been trained never to show fear. I was sure of that from my dream with the wolves. I was supposed to act confident, even if I didn’t feel it. But Cath, Leo and Piper were depending on me, and I was terrified of failing them. If I had to lead a group of seven - seven who might not get along - that would be even worse.  
  
“I don’t know,” I said at last. “I guess the other four will show up when the time is right. Who knows? Maybe they’re on some other quest right now.”  
  
Leo grunted. “I bet their sewer is nicer than ours.”  
  
The draft picked up, blowing toward the south end of the tunnel.  
  
“Get some rest, guys,” Jason said. “I’ll take first watch.”

Cath turned up the volume of her little music box so loud I could hear it through her earbuds and slumped down. Her breathing evened out, and eventually her and Leo began to lean on one another. I suppressed a small smile at it.  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**PIPER**

I woke up first. Jason was looking at me with an emotion I couldn't decipher, and I turned my gaze on Cath and Leo instead. They were leaning on one another, with Cath's head on Leo's shoulder, and his head on top of hers. She was the only one on this quest that was shorter than Leo, even if only by two or three inches, but she was the most muscular out of all of us. On top of that, she held an aura of raw power, and her cold gaze made it even scarier.

I'd been surprised in the warehouse when her voice felt so soothing, or before I fell asleep, when it was one of the most gentle things I'd even experienced. I was nearly sure the harshness wasn't who she really was - it was just a front. I could see it in the way her face looked when she was sleeping; it wasn't relaxed, but it wasn't the usual steely glare and set jaw. It was soft and delicate, and I was almost reminded of a bunny, with her small, pointy nose and her big eyes. Even the short hair that defined her harsh cheekbones couldn't take away the natural gentleness of her relaxed eyebrows and lips that naturally curved upward. Honestly, I could've mistaken her to be one of my siblings, and I felt a strange sisterly protectiveness over her, just as I did with Leo.

Speaking of Leo, he was starting to stir. His shoulder shifted, and Cath's head snapped up - apparently she was a light sleeper. I saw the harsh mask take over her face again as she sat up and checked her surroundings. The movement had made Leo wake up as well, and he stared at her with adoration in his eyes before he caught me and Jason looking at them both. I grinned softly at him and winked when Cath wasn't looking, to which he quickly stuck out his tongue.

Finally we broke camp and started down the tunnel.

It twisted and turned and seemed to go on forever. I wasn’t sure what to expect at the end - a dungeon, a mad scientist’s lab, or maybe a sewer reservoir where all Porta-Potty sludge ends up, forming an evil toilet face large enough to swallow the world.  
  
Instead, we found polished steel elevator doors, each one engraved with a cursive letter M. Next to the elevator was a directory, like for a department store.  
  
“M for Macy’s?” I guessed. “I think they have one in downtown Chicago.”  
  
“Or Monocle Motors still?” Leo said. “Guys, read the directory. It’s messed up.”  
  
 **Parking, Kennels, Main Entrance: Sewer Level**  
  
 **Furnishings and Café M: 1**  
  
 **Women’s Fashion and Magical Appliances: 2**  
  
 **Men’s Wear and Weaponry: 3**  
  
 **Cosmetics, Potions, Poisons & Sundries: 4**  
  
“Kennels for what?” I said. “And what kind of department store has its entrance in a sewer?”  
  
“Or sells poisons,” Leo said. “Man, what does ‘sundries’ even mean? Is that like underwear?”

"Sundries means miscellaneous items, usually not that high of a value. Magazines, pens, chewing gum, that sort of thing." Cath crossed her arms as she spoke.  
  
Jason took a deep breath. “When in doubt, start at the top.”  
  
* * * * *  
  
The doors slid open on the fourth floor, and the scent of perfume wafted into the elevator. Jason stepped out first, sword ready.  
  
“Guys,” he said. “You’ve got to see this.”  
  
I joined him and caught my breath. “This is not Macy’s.”  
  
The department store looked like the inside of a kaleidoscope. The entire ceiling was a stained glass mosaic with astrological signs around a giant sun. The daylight streaming through it washed everything in a thousand different colors. The upper floors made a ring of balconies around a huge central atrium, so we could see all the way down to the ground floor. Gold railings glittered so brightly, they were hard to look at.  
  
Aside from the stained glass ceiling and the elevator, I couldn’t see any other windows or doors, but two sets of glass escalators ran between the levels. The carpeting was a riot of oriental patterns and colors, and the racks of merchandise were just as bizarre. There was too much to take it at once, but I saw normal stuff like shirt racks and shoe trees mixed in with armored manikins, beds of nails, and fur coats that seemed to be moving.  
  
Leo stepped to the railing and looked down. “Check it out.”  
  
In the middle of the atrium a fountain sprayed water twenty feet into the air, changing color from red to yellow to blue. The pool glittered with gold coins, and on either side of the fountain stood a gilded cage - like an oversize canary cage.  
  
Inside one, a miniature hurricane swirled, and lightning flashed. Somebody had imprisoned the storm spirits, and the cage shuddered as they tried to get out. In the other, frozen like a statue, was a short, buff satyr, holding a tree-branch club.  
  
“Coach Hedge!” I said. “We’ve got to get down there.”  
  
A voice said, “May I help you find something?”  
  
All four of us jumped back.  
  
A woman had just appeared in front of us. She wore an elegant black dress with diamond jewelry, and she looked like a retired fashion model - maybe fifty years old, though it was hard for me to judge. Her long dark hair swept over one shoulder, and her face was gorgeous in that surreal super-model way - thin and haughty and cold, not quite human. With their long red-painted nails, her fingers looked more like talons.  
  
She smiled. “I’m so happy to see new customers. How may I help you?”  
  
Leo glanced at Jason like, _All yours._  
  
“Um,” Jason started, “is this your store?”  
  
The woman nodded. “I found it abandoned, you know. I understand so many stores are, these days. I decided it would make the perfect place. I love collecting tasteful objects, helping people, and offering quality goods at a reasonable price. So this seemed a good... how do you say... first acquisition in this country.”  
  
She spoke with a pleasing accent, but I couldn’t guess where from. Jason started to visibly relax.  
  
“So you’re new to America?” he asked.  
  
“I am... new,” the woman agreed. “I am the Princess of Colchis. My friends call me Your Highness. Now, what are you looking for?”

Cath stiffened and, if possible, glared even harder.  
  
I poked Jason in the ribs warningly.  
  
“Um, right. Actually, Your Highness...” He pointed to the gilded cage on the first floor. “That’s our friend down there, Gleeson Hedge. The satyr. Could we... have him back, please?”  
  
“Of course!” the princess agreed immediately. “I would love to show you my inventory. First, may I know your names?”  
  
It seemed like a bad idea to give out our names.  
  
I started to say, “Uhh, I wouldn’t-”  
  
“This is Piper,” he said. “This is Leo and Emily-Catherine. I’m Jason.”  
  
The princess fixed her eyes on him and, just for a moment, her face literally glowed, blazing with so much anger, I could see her skull beneath her skin. Then the moment passed, and Her Highness looked like a normal elegant woman again, with a cordial smile and a soothing voice.  
  
“Jason. What an interesting name,” she said, her eyes as cold as the Chicago wind. “I think we’ll have to make a special deal for you. Come, children. Let’s go shopping.”

I wanted to run for the elevator.  
  
My second choice: attack the weird princess now, because I was sure a fight was coming. The way the lady’s face glowed when she’d heard Jason’s name had been bad enough. Now Her Highness was smiling like nothing had happened, and Jason and Leo didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. Cath looked conflicted -possibly also wanting to attack the princess.  
  
The princess gestured toward the cosmetics counter. “Shall we start with the potions?”  
  
“Cool,” Jason said.  
  
“Guys,” I interrupted, “we’re here to get the storm spirits and Coach Hedge. If this- princess- is really our friend-”

“Oh, I’m better than a friend, my dear,” Her Highness said. “I’m a saleswoman.” Her diamonds sparkled, and her eyes glittered like a snake’s - cold and dark. “Don’t worry. We’ll work our way down to the first floor, eh?”  
  
Leo nodded eagerly. “Sure, yeah! That sounds okay. Right, Piper?”  
  
I did my best to stare daggers at him: _No, it is not okay!_  
  
“Of course it’s okay.” Her Highness put her hands on Leo’s and Jason’s shoulders and steered them toward the cosmetics. “Come along, boys.”  
  
We didn’t have much choice except to follow.  
  
I hated department stores - mostly because I’d gotten caught stealing from several of them. Well, not exactly caught, and not exactly stealing. I’d talked salesmen into giving me computers, new boots, a gold ring, once even a lawn mower, though I had no idea why I wanted one. I never kept the stuff. I just did it to get my dad’s attention. Usually I talked my neighborhood UPS guy into taking the stuff back. But of course the salesmen I duped always came to their senses and called the police, who eventually tracked me down.  
  
Anyway, I wasn’t thrilled to be back in a department store - especially one run by a crazy princess who glowed in the dark.  
  
“And here,” the princess said, “is the finest assortment of magical mixtures anywhere.”  
  
The counter was crammed with bubbling beakers and smoking vials on tripods. Lining the display shelves were crystal flasks - some shaped like swans or honey bear dispensers. The liquids inside were every color, from glowing white to polka-dotted. And the smells - ugh! Some were pleasant, like fresh-baked cookies or roses, but they were mixed with the scents of burning tires, skunk spray, and gym lockers.  
  
The princess pointed to a bloodred vial—a simple test tube with a cork stopper. “This one will heal any disease.”  
  
“Even cancer?” Leo asked. “Leprosy? Hangnails?”  
  
“Any disease, sweet boy. And this vial” - she pointed to a swan-shaped container with blue liquid inside - “will kill you very painfully.”  
  
“Awesome,” Jason said. His voice sounded dazed and sleepy.  
  
“Jason,” I said. “We’ve got a job to do. Remember?” I tried to put power into my words, to snap him out of his trance with charmspeak, but my voice sounded shaky even to me. This princess woman scared me too much, made my confidence crumble, just the way I’d felt back in the Aphrodite cabin with Drew.  
  
“Job to do,” Jason muttered. “Sure. But shopping first, okay?”  
  
The princess beamed at him. “Then we have potions for resisting fire-”  
  
“Got that covered,” Leo said.  
  
“Indeed?” The princess studied Leo’s face more closely. “You don’t appear to be wearing my trademark sunscreen... but no matter. We also have potions that cause blindness, insanity, sleep - which I'm sure your friend here understands the power of, and many more, like-”  
  
“Wait.” I was still staring at the red vial. “Could that potion cure lost memory?”  
  
The princess narrowed her eyes. “Possibly. Yes. Quite possibly. Why, my dear? Have you forgotten something important?”  
  
I tried to keep my expression neutral, but if that vial could cure Jason’s memory...  
  
 _Do I really want that?_  I wondered.  
  
If Jason found out who he was, he might not even be our friend. Hera had taken away his memories for a reason. I’d told him it was the only way he’d survive at Camp Half-Blood. What if Jason found out that he was our enemy, or something? He might come out of his amnesia and decide he hated me. He might have a girlfriend wherever he came from.  
  
 _It doesn’t matter_ , I decided, which kind of surprised me.  
  
Jason always looked so anguished when he tried to remember things. I hated seeing him that way. I wanted to help him because I cared about him, even if that meant losing him. And maybe it would make this trip through Her Craziness’s department store worthwhile.  
  
“How much?” I asked.  
  
The princess got a faraway look in her eyes. “Well, now... The price is always tricky. I love helping people. Honestly, I do. And I always keep my bargains, but sometimes people try to cheat me.” Her gaze drifted to Jason. “Once, for instance, I met a handsome young man who wanted a treasure from my father’s kingdom. We made a bargain, and I promised to help him steal it.”  
  
“From your own dad?” Jason still looked half in a trance, but the idea seemed to bother him.  
  
“Oh, don’t worry,” the princess said. “I demanded a high price. The young man had to take me away with him. He was quite good-looking, dashing, strong...” She looked at me. “I’m sure, my dear, you understand how one might be attracted to such a hero, and want to help him.”  
  
I tried to control my emotions, but I probably blushed. I got the creepiest feeling the princess could read my thoughts.  
  
I also found the princess’s story disturbingly familiar. Pieces of old myths I’d read with her dad started coming together, but this woman couldn’t be the one I was thinking of. When I looked at Cath, though, and saw the horrified look on her face, masked by a steely glare - her pokerface, I'd come to realize - I knew she was thinking the same thing.  
  
“At any rate,” Her Highness continued, snapping me out of my thoughts, “my hero had to do many impossible tasks, and I’m not bragging when I say he couldn’t have done them without me. I betrayed my own family to win the hero his prize. And still he cheated me of my payment.”  
  
“Cheated?” Jason frowned, as if trying to remember something important.  
  
“That’s messed up,” Leo said.  
  
Her Highness patted his cheek affectionately. “I’m sure you don’t need to worry, Leo. You seem honest. You would always pay a fair price, wouldn’t you?”  
  
Leo nodded. “What were we buying again? I’ll take two.”  
  
I broke in: “So, the vial, Your Highness - how much?”  
  
The princess assessed my clothes, my face, my posture, as if putting a price tag on one slightly used demigod.  
  
“Would you give anything for it, my dear?” the princess asked. “I sense that you would.”  
  
The words washed over me as powerfully as a good surfing wave. The force of the suggestion nearly lifted me off my feet. I wanted to pay any price. I wanted to say yes.  
  
Then my stomach twisted. I realized we were being charmspoken. I’d sensed something like it before, when Drew spoke at the campfire, but this was a thousand times more potent. No wonder my friends were dazed. Was this was what people felt when I used charmspeak? A feeling of guilt settled over me.  
  
I summoned all my willpower. “No, I won’t pay any price. But a fair price, maybe. After that, we need to leave. Right, guys?”  
  
Just for a moment, my words seemed to have some effect. The boys looked confused.  
  
“Leave?” Jason said.  
  
“You mean... after shopping?” Leo asked.  
  
I wanted to scream, but the princess tilted her head, examining me with newfound respect.  
  
“Impressive,” the princess said. “Not many people could resist my suggestions. Are you a child of Aphrodite, my dear? Ah, yes - I should have seen it. No matter. Perhaps we should shop a while longer before you decide what to buy, eh?”  
  
“But the vial-”  
  
“Now, boys.” She turned to Jason and Leo. Her voice was so much more powerful than mine, so full of confidence, I didn’t stand a chance. “Would you like to see more?”  
  
“Sure,” Jason said.  
  
“Okay,” Leo said.  
  
“Excellent,” the princess said. “You’ll need all the help you can get if you’re to make it to the Bay Area.”  
  
My hand moved to my dagger. I thought about my dream of the mountaintop - the scene Enceladus had shown me, a place I knew, where I was supposed to betray my friends in two days.  
  
“The Bay Area?” I said. “Why the Bay Area?”  
  
The princess smiled. “Well, that’s where they’ll die, isn’t it?”  
  
Then she led them toward the escalators, Jason and Leo still looking excited to shop.  
  
I cornered the princess as Jason and Leo went off to check out the living fur coats. Cath stayed with me, which I was grateful for.  
  
“You want them shopping for their deaths?” I demanded.  
  
“Mmm.” The princess blew dust off a display case of swords. “I’m a seer, my dear. I know your little secret. But we don’t want to dwell on that, do we? The boys are having such fun.”  
  
Leo laughed as he tried on a hat that seemed to be made from enchanted raccoon fur. Its ringed tail twitched, and its little legs wiggled frantically as Leo walked. Jason was ogling the men’s sportswear. Boys interested in shopping for clothes? A definite sign they were under an evil spell.  
  
I glared at the princess. “Who are you?”  
  
“I told you, my dear. I’m the Princess of Colchis.”  
  
“Where’s Colchis?”  
  
The princess’s expression turned a little sad. “Where was Colchis, you mean. My father ruled the far shores of the Black Sea, as far to the east as a Greek ship could sail in those days. But Colchis is no more - lost eons ago.”  
  
“Eons?” I asked. The princess looked no more than fifty, but a bad feeling started settling over me - something King Boreas had mentioned back in Quebec. “How old are you?”  
  
The princess laughed. “A lady should avoid asking or answering that question. Let’s just say the, ah, immigration process to enter your country took quite a while. My patron finally brought me through. She made all this possible.” The princess swept her hand around the department store.  
  
My mouth tasted like metal. “Your patron...”  
  
“Oh, yes. She doesn’t bring just anyone through, mind you - only those who have special talents, such as me. And really, she insists on so little - a store entrance that must be underground so she can, ah, monitor my clientele; and a favor now and then. In exchange for a new life? Really, it was the best bargain I’d made in centuries.”  
  
 _Run_ , I thought. _We have to get out of here._  
  
But before I could even turn her thoughts into words, Jason called, “Hey, check it out!”  
  
From a rack labeled distressed clothing, he held up a purple T-shirt like the one he’d worn on the school field trip - except this shirt looked as if it had been clawed by tigers.  
  
Jason frowned. “Why does this look so familiar?”  
  
“Jason, it’s like yours,” I said. “Now we really have to leave.” But I wasn’t sure he could even hear me anymore through the princess’s enchantment.  
  
“Nonsense,” the princess said. “The boys aren’t done, are they? And yes, my dear. Those shirts are very popular - trade-ins from previous customers. It suits you.”  
  
Leo picked up an orange Camp Half-Blood tee with a hole through the middle, as if it had been hit by a javelin. Next to that was a dented bronze breastplate pitted with corrosion - acid, maybe? - and a Roman toga slashed to pieces and stained with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

Cath noticed the breastplate and her entire body went rigid. She set her gaze on the Princess, the golden flecks in her eyes glowing like little tiny suns.

"Y-you... That was Silena's. You have no right to possess that. You have no right!" Her hands were closed into fists, but they were trembling.

"Ah, little girl, and you do? Tell me, would that little so-called 'hero' want you to act like you do? How are you more entitled to that thing than me, when honestly, from one descendant of the sun to another," - I straightened like I'd been tasered, my suspicions confirmed - "I sense that you know in your heart that you lost her legacy the moment you broke your final promise to her - when you betrayed her memory."

“Your Highness,” I said, trying to control my nerves. “Why don’t you tell the boys how _you_ betrayed your _family_? I’m sure they’d like to hear that story.”  
  
My words didn’t have any effect on the princess, but the boys turned, suddenly interested.  
  
“More story?” Leo asked.  
  
“I like more story!” Jason agreed.  
  
The princess flashed me an irritated look. “Oh, one will do strange things for love, Piper. You should know that. I fell for that young hero, in fact, because your mother Aphrodite had me under a spell. If it wasn’t for her - but I can’t hold a grudge against a goddess, can I?”  
  
The princess’s tone made her meaning clear: _I can take it out on you._  
  
“But that hero took you with him when he fled Colchis,” I remembered. “Didn’t he, Your Highness? He married you just as he promised.”  
  
The look in the princess’s eyes made me want to apologize, but I didn’t back down.  
  
“At first,” Her Highness admitted, “it seemed he would keep his word. But even after I helped him steal my father’s treasure, he still needed my help. As we fled, my brother’s fleet came after us. His warships overtook us. He would have destroyed us, but I convinced my brother to come aboard our ship first and talk under a flag of truce. He trusted me.”  
  
“And you killed your own brother,” Cath spat out.  
  
“What?” Jason stirred. For a moment he looked almost like himself. “Killed your own-”  
  
“No,” the princess snapped. “Those stories are lies. It was my new husband and his men who killed my brother, though they couldn’t have done it without my deception. They threw his body into the sea, and the pursuing fleet had to stop and search for it so they could give my brother a proper burial. This gave us time to get away. All this, I did for my husband. And he forgot our bargain. He betrayed me in the end.”  
  
Jason still looked uncomfortable. “What did he do?”  
  
The princess held the sliced-up toga against Jason’s chest, as if measuring him for an assassination. “Don’t you know the story, my boy? You of all people should. You were named for him.”  
  
“Jason,” I said. “The original Jason. But then you’re - you should be dead!”  
  
The princess smiled. “As I said, a new life in a new country. Certainly I made mistakes. I turned my back on my own people. I was called a traitor, a thief, a liar, a murderess. But I acted out of love.” She turned to the boys and gave them a pitiful look, batting her eyelashes. I could feel the sorcery washing over them, taking control more firmly than ever.  
  
“Wouldn’t you do the same for someone you loved, my dears?”  
  
“Oh, sure,” Jason said.  
  
“Okay,” Leo said.  
  
“Guys!” I ground my teeth in frustration. “Don’t you see who she is? Don’t you-”  
  
“Let’s continue, shall we?” the princess said breezily. “I believe you wanted to talk about a price for the storm spirits - and your satyr.”  
  
Leo got distracted on the second floor with the appliances.  
  
“No way,” he said. “Is that an armored forge?”  
  
Before I could stop him, he hopped off the escalator and ran over to a big oval oven that looked like a barbecue on steroids.  
  
When they caught up with him, the princess said, “You have good taste. This is the H-2000, designed by Hephaestus himself. Hot enough to melt Celestial bronze or Imperial gold.”  
  
Jason flinched as if he recognized that term. “Imperial gold?”  
  
The princess nodded. “Yes, my dear. Like that weapon so cleverly concealed in your pocket. To be properly forged, Imperial gold had to be consecrated in the Temple of Jupiter on Capitoline Hill in Rome. Quite a powerful and rare metal, but like the Roman emperors, quite volatile. Be sure never to break that blade...” She smiled pleasantly. “Rome was after my time, of course, but I do hear stories. And now over here - this golden throne is one of my finest luxury items. Hephaestus made it as a punishment for his mother, Hera. Sit in it and you’ll be immediately trapped.”  
  
Leo apparently took this as an order. He began walking toward it in a trance.  
  
“Leo, don’t!” I warned.  
  
He blinked. “How much for both?”  
  
“Oh, the seat I could let you have for five great deeds. The forge, seven years of servitude. And for only a bit of your strength-” She led Leo into the appliance section, giving him prices on various items.  
  
I had to try reasoning with Jason. As Cath followed Leo, I pulled Jason aside and slapped him across the face.  
  
“Ow,” he muttered sleepily. “What was that for?”  
  
“Snap out of it!” I hissed.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“She’s charmspeaking you. Can’t you feel it?”  
  
He knit his eyebrows. “She seems okay.”  
  
“She’s not okay! She shouldn’t even be alive! She was married to Jason - the other Jason - three thousand years ago. Remember what Boreas said - something about the souls no longer being confined to Hades? It’s not just monsters who can’t stay dead. She’s come back from the Underworld!”  
  
Jason shook his head uneasily. “She’s not a ghost.”  
  
“No, she’s worse! She’s-”  
  
“Children.” The princess was back with Leo in tow, Cath right behind them. She still looked like she was about to attack the Princess, burst into tears, faint, or all three. “If you please, we will now see what you came for. That is what you want, yes?”  
  
I had to choke back a scream. I was tempted to pull out my dagger and take on this witch myself, but I didn’t like the chances - not in the middle of Her Highness’s department store while the majority of my friends were under a spell. I couldn’t even be sure Leo and Jason would take our side in a fight. I had to figure out a better plan.  
  
We took the escalator down to the base of the fountain. For the first time, I noticed two large bronze sundials - each about the size of a trampoline - inlaid on the marble tile floor to the north and south of the fountain. The gilded oversize canary cages stood to the east and west, and the farthest one held the storm spirits. They were so densely packed, spinning around like a super-concentrated tornado, that I couldn’t tell how many there were - dozens, at least.  
  
“Hey,” Leo said, “Coach Hedge looks okay!”  
  
We ran to the nearest canary cage. The old satyr seemed to have been petrified at the moment he was sucked into the sky above the Grand Canyon. He was frozen mid-shout, his club raised over his head like he was ordering the gym class to drop and give him fifty. His curly hair stuck up at odd angles. If I just concentrated on certain details - the bright orange polo shirt, the wispy goatee, the whistle around his neck - I could imagine Coach Hedge as his good old annoying self. But it was hard to ignore the stubby horns on his head, and the fact that he had furry goat legs and hooves instead of workout pants and Nikes.  
  
“Yes,” the princess said. “I always keep my wares in good condition. We can certainly barter for the storm spirits and the satyr. A package deal. If we come to terms, I’ll even throw in the vial of healing potion, and you can go in peace.” She gave me a shrewd look. “That’s better than starting unpleasantness, isn’t it, dear?”  
  
 _Don’t trust her_ , warned a voice in my head. If I was right about this lady’s identity, nobody would be leaving in peace. A fair deal wasn’t possible. It was all a trick. But Leo and Jason were looking at me, nodding urgently and mouthing, _Say yes!_  I needed more to time to think.  
  
“We can negotiate,” I said.  
  
“Totally!” Leo agreed. “Name your price.”  
  
“Leo!” Cath snapped, and he flinched.  
  
The princess chuckled. “Name my price? Perhaps not the best haggling strategy, my boy, but at least you know a thing’s value. Freedom is very valuable indeed. You would ask me to release this satyr, who attacked my storm winds-”  
  
“Who attacked us,” I interjected.  
  
Her Highness shrugged. “As I said, my patron asks me for small favors from time to time. Sending the storm spirits to abduct you - that was one. I assure you it was nothing personal. And no harm done, as you came here, in the end, of your own free will! At any rate, you want the satyr freed, and you want my storm spirits - who are very valuable servants, by the way - so you can hand them over to that tyrant Aeolus. Doesn’t seem quite fair, does it? The price will be high.”  
  
I could see that my friends were ready to offer anything, promise anything. Before they could speak, I played her last card.  
  
“You’re Medea,” I said. “You helped the original Jason steal the Golden Fleece. You’re one of the most evil villains in Greek mythology. Jason, Leo - don’t trust her.”  
  
I put all the intensity I could gather into those words. I was utterly sincere, and it seemed to have some effect. Jason stepped away from the sorceress.  
  
Leo scratched his head and looked around like he was coming out of a dream.  
  
“What are we doing, again?”  
  
“Boys!” The princess spread her hands in a welcoming gesture. Her diamond jewelry glittered, and her painted fingers curled like blood-tipped claws. “It’s true, I’m Medea. But I’m so misunderstood. Oh, Piper, my dear, you don’t know what it was like for women in the old days. We had no power, no leverage. Often we couldn’t even choose our own husbands. But I was different. I chose my own destiny by becoming a sorceress. Is that so wrong? I made a pact with Jason: my help to win the fleece, in exchange for his love. A fair deal. He became a famous hero! Without me, he would’ve died unknown on the shores of Colchis.”  
  
Jason - our Jason - scowled. “Then... you really did die three thousand years ago? You came back from the Underworld?”  
  
“Death no longer holds me, young hero,” Medea said. “Thanks to my patron, I am flesh and blood again.”  
  
“You... re-formed?” Leo blinked. “Like a monster?”  
  
Medea spread her fingers, and steam hissed from her nails, like water splashed on hot iron. “You have no idea what’s happening, do you, my dears? It is so much worse than a stirring of monsters from Tartarus. My patron knows that giants and monsters are not her greatest servants. I am mortal. I learn from my mistakes. And now that I have returned to the living, I will not be cheated again. Now, here is my price for what you ask.”  
  
“Guys,” I said. “The original Jason left Medea because she was crazy and bloodthirsty.”  
  
“Lies!” Medea said.  
  
“On the way back from Colchis, Jason’s ship landed at another kingdom, and Jason agreed to dump Medea and marry the king’s daughter.”  
  
“After I bore him two children!” Medea said. “Still he broke his promise! I ask you, was that right?”  
  
Jason and Leo dutifully shook their heads, but I wasn’t through.

“It may not have been right,” I said, “but neither was Medea’s revenge. She murdered her own children to get back at Jason. She poisoned his new wife and fled the kingdom.”  
  
Medea snarled. “An invention to ruin my reputation! The people of the Corinth - that unruly mob - killed my children and drove me out. Jason did nothing to protect me. He robbed me of everything. So yes, I sneaked back into the palace and poisoned his lovely new bride. It was only fair - a suitable price.”  
  
“You’re insane,” I said.  
  
“I am the victim!” Medea wailed. “I died with my dreams shattered, but no longer. I know now not to trust heroes. When they come asking for treasures, they will pay a heavy price. Especially when the one asking has the name of Jason!”  
  
The fountain turned bright red. I drew my dagger, but my hand was shaking almost too badly to hold it. “Jason, Leo - it’s time to go. Now.”  
  
“Before you’ve closed the deal?” Medea asked. “What of your quest, boys? And my price is so easy. Did you know this fountain is magic? If a dead man were to be thrown into it, even if he was chopped to pieces, he would pop back out fully formed - stronger and more powerful than ever.”  
  
“Seriously?” Leo asked.  
  
“Leo, she’s lying,” Cath said. “She did that trick with somebody before - the king of Iolkos, a man named Pelias. She convinced his daughters to cut him to pieces so he could come out of the water young and healthy again, but she didn't work her magic, and so it killed him!”  
  
“Ridiculous,” Medea said, and I could hear the power charged in every syllable. “Leo, Jason - my price is so simple. Why don’t you two fight? If you get injured, or even killed, no problem. We’ll just throw you into the fountain and you’ll be better than ever. You do want to fight, don’t you? You resent each other!”  
  
“Guys, no!” I said. But they were already glaring at each other, as if it was just dawning on them how they really felt.  
  
I had never felt more helpless. Now I understood what real sorcery looked like. I’d always thought magic meant wands and fireballs, but this was worse. Medea didn’t just rely on poisons and potions. Her most potent weapon was her voice.  
  
Leo scowled. “Jason’s always the star. He always gets the attention and takes me for granted.”  
  
“You’re annoying, Leo,” Jason said. “You never take anything seriously. You can’t even fix a dragon.”  
  
“Stop!” I pleaded, but both drew weapons - Jason his gold sword, and Leo a hammer from his tool belt.  
  
“Let them go, Piper,” Medea urged. “I’m doing you a favor. Let it happen now, and it will make your choice so much easier. Enceladus will be pleased. You could have your father back today!”  
  
Medea’s charmspeak didn’t work on me, but the sorceress still had a persuasive voice. My father back today? Despite my best intentions, I wanted that. I wanted her father back so much, it hurt.  
  
“You work for Enceladus,” I said.  
  
Medea laughed. “Serve a giant? No. But we all serve the same greater cause - a patron you cannot begin to challenge. Walk away, child of Aphrodite. This does not have to be your death, too. Save yourself, and your father can go free.”  
  
Leo and Jason were still facing off, ready to fight, but they looked unsteady and confused - waiting for another order. Part of them had to be resisting, I hoped. This went completely against their nature.  
  
“Listen to me, girl.” Medea plucked a diamond off her bracelet and threw it into a spray of water from the fountain. As it passed through the multicolored light, Medea said, “O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show me the office of Tristan McLean.”  
  
The mist shimmered, and I saw my father’s study. Sitting behind his desk, talking on the phone, was her dad’s assistant, Jane, in her dark business suit, her hair swirled in a tight bun.  
  
“Hello, Jane,” Medea said.  
  
Jane hung up the phone calmly. “How can I help you, ma’am? Hello, Piper.”  
  
“You-” I was so angry I could hardly talk.  
  
“Yes, child,” Medea said. “Your father’s assistant. Quite easy to manipulate. An organized mind for a mortal, but incredibly weak.”  
  
“Thank you, ma’am,” Jane said.  
  
“Don’t mention it,” Medea said. “I just wanted to congratulate you, Jane. Getting Mr. McLean to leave town so suddenly, take his jet to Oakland without alerting the press or the police - well done! No one seems to know where he’s gone. And telling him his daughter’s life was on the line - that was a nice touch to get his cooperation.”  
  
“Yes,” Jane agreed in a bland tone, as if she were sleepwalking. “He was quite cooperative when he believed Piper was in danger.”  
  
I looked down at my dagger. The blade trembled in my hand. I couldn’t use it for a weapon any better than Helen of Troy could, but it was still a looking glass, and what I saw in it was a scared girl with no chance of winning.  
  
“I may have new orders for you, Jane,” Medea said. “If the girl cooperates, it may be time for Mr. McLean to come home. Would you arrange a suitable cover story for his absence, just in case? And I imagine the poor man will need some time in a psychiatric hospital.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am. I will stand by.”  
  
The image faded, and Medea turned to Piper. “There, you see?”  
  
“You lured my dad into a trap,” Piper said. “You helped the giant-”  
  
“Oh, please, dear. You’ll work yourself into a fit! I’ve been preparing for this war for years, even before I was brought back to life. I’m a seer, as I said. I can tell the future as well as your little oracle. Years ago, still suffering in the Fields of Punishment, I had a vision of the seven in your so-called Great Prophecy. I saw your friend Leo here, and saw that he would be an important enemy someday. I stirred the consciousness of my patron, gave her this information, and she managed to wake just a little - just enough to visit him.”  
  
“Leo’s mother,” I said. “Leo, listen to this! She helped get your mother killed!”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Leo mumbled, in a daze. He frowned at his hammer. “So... I just attack Jason? That’s okay?”  
  
“Perfectly safe,” Medea promised. “And Jason, strike him hard. Show me you are worthy of your namesake.”  
  
“No!” I ordered. I locked eyes with Cath, and we knew it was our last chance. “Jason, Leo - she’s tricking you. Put down your weapons.”  
  
The sorceress rolled her eyes. “Please, girl. You’re no match for me - not even the pathetic excuse of a demigod-version of the ancient sirens you're with. I trained with my aunt, the immortal Circe. I can drive men mad or heal them with my voice. What hope do these puny young heroes have against me? Now, boys, kill each other!”  
  
“Jason, Leo, listen to me.” I put all of my emotion into her voice. For years I’d been trying to control myself and not show weakness, but now I poured everything into my words - my fear, my desperation, my anger. I knew I might be signing my dad’s death warrant, but I cared too much about my friends to let them hurt each other. I nodded at Cath, who began to sing - I could feel the magic of her voice ringing through the entire building, vibrating the walls, rippling the water in the fountain. I didn't understand words she sang, but I could feel the ancient language's motivating me. I turned my gaze on the boys after a few of her words. “Medea is charming you. It’s part of her magic. You are best friends. Don’t fight each other. Fight her!”  
  
They hesitated, and I could feel the spell shatter.  
  
Jason blinked. “Leo, was I just about to stab you?”  
  
“Something about my mother...?” Leo frowned, then turned toward Medea. “You... you’re working for Dirt Woman. You sent her to the machine shop.” He lifted his arm. “Lady, I got a three-pound hammer with your name on it."  
  
“Bah!” Medea sneered. “I’ll simply collect payment another way.”  
  
She pressed one of the mosaic tiles on the floor, and the building rumbled. Jason swung his sword at Medea, but she dissolved into smoke and reappeared at the base of the escalator.  
  
“You’re slow, hero!” She laughed. “Take your frustration out on my pets!”  
  
Before Jason could go after her, the giant bronze sundials at either end of the fountain swung open. Two snarling gold beasts - flesh-and-blood winged dragons - crawled out from the pits below. Each was the size of a camper van, maybe not large compared to Festus, but large enough.  
  
“So that’s what’s in the kennels,” Leo said meekly.  
  
The dragons spread their wings and hissed. I could feel the heat coming off their glittering skin. One turned his angry orange eyes on her.  
  
“Don’t look them in the eye!” Cath croaked out, who looked like she was about to collapse. “They’ll paralyze you.”  
  
“Indeed!” Medea was leisurely riding the escalator up, leaning against the handrail as she watched the fun. “These two dears have been with me a long time - sun dragons, you know, gifts from my grandfather Helios. They pulled my chariot when I left Corinth, and now they will be your destruction. Ta-ta!”  
  
The dragons lunged. Leo and Jason charged to intercept. I was amazed how fearlessly the boys attacked - working like a team who had trained together for years. Cath drew an arrow, but I knew she wouldn't be able to get a clean shot with the boys running around - at least, not in her tired state.  
  
Medea was almost to the second floor, where she’d be able to choose from a wide assortment of deadly appliances.  
  
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I growled, and took off after her.  
  
When Medea spotted me, she started climbing in earnest. She was quick for a three-thousand-year-old lady. I climbed at top speed, taking the steps three at a time, and still I couldn’t catch her. Medea didn’t stop at floor two. She hopped the next escalator and continued to ascend.  
  
 _The potions_ , I thought. _Of course that’s what she would go for. She was famous for potions._  
  
Down below, I heard the battle raging. Leo was blowing his safety whistle, and Jason was yelling to keep the dragons’ attention. I didn’t dare look - not while I was running with a dagger in her hand. I could just see myself tripping and stabbing myself in the nose. That would be super heroic.  
  
I grabbed a shield from an armored manikin on floor three and continued to climb. I imagined Coach Hedge yelling in my mind, just like back in gym class at Wilderness School: _Move it, McLean! You call that escalator-climbing?_  
  
I reached the top floor, breathing hard, but I was too late. Medea had reached the potions counter.  
  
The sorceress grabbed a swan-shaped vial - the blue one that caused painful death - and I did the only thing that came to mind. I threw the shield.  
  
Medea turned triumphantly just in time to get hit in the chest by a fifty-pound metal Frisbee. She stumbled backward, crashing over the counter, breaking vials and knocking down shelves. When the sorceress stood from the wreckage, her dress was stained a dozen different colors. Many of the stains were smoldering and glowing.  
  
“Fool!” Medea wailed. “Do you have any idea what so many potions will do when mixed?”  
  
“Kill you?” I said hopefully.  
  
The carpet began to steam around Medea’s feet. She coughed, and her face contorted in pain - or was she faking?  
  
Below, Leo called, “Jason, help!”  
  
I risked a quick look, and almost sobbed in despair. One of the dragons had Leo pinned to the floor. It was baring its fangs, ready to snap. Jason was all the way across the room battling the other dragon, much too far away to assist.

“You’ve doomed us all!” Medea screamed. Smoke was rolling across the carpet as the stain spread, throwing sparks and setting fires in the clothing racks. “You have only seconds before this concoction consumes everything and destroys the building. There’s no time-”  
  
CRASH! The stained glass ceiling splintered in a rain of multicolored shards, and Festus the bronze dragon dropped into the department store. Cath took the opportunity to send an arrow into the eye of the dragon that was threatening Leo.  
  
Festus hurtled into the fray, snatching up a sun dragon in each claw. Only now did I appreciate just how big and strong our metal friend was.  
  
“That’s my boy!” Leo yelled.  
  
Festus flew halfway up the atrium, then hurled the sun dragons into the pits they’d come from. Leo raced to the fountain and pressed the marble tile, closing the sundials. They shuddered as the dragons banged against them, trying to get out, but for the moment they were contained.  
  
Medea cursed in some ancient language. The whole fourth floor was on fire now. The air filled with noxious gas. Even with the roof open, I could feel the heat intensifying. I backed up to the edge of the railing, keeping my dagger pointed toward Medea.  
  
“I will not be abandoned again!” The sorceress knelt and snatched up the red healing potion, which had somehow survived the crash. “You want your boyfriend’s memory restored? Take me with you!”  
  
I glanced behind me. Leo, Cath and Jason were on board Festus’s back. The bronze dragon flapped his mighty wings, snatched the two cages with the satyr and the storm spirits in his claws, and began to ascend.  
  
The building rumbled. Fire and the smoke curled up the walls, melting the railings, turning the air to acid.  
  
“You’ll never survive your quest without me!” Medea growled. “Your boy hero will stay ignorant forever, and your father will die. Take me with you!”  
  
For one heartbeat, I was tempted. Then I saw Medea’s grim smile. The sorceress was confident in her powers of persuasion, confident that she could always make a deal, always escape and win in the end.  
  
“Not today, witch.” I jumped over the side. I plummeted for only a second before Cath and Jason caught me, hauling me aboard the dragon.  
  
I heard Medea screaming in rage as they soared through the broken roof and over downtown Chicago. Then the department store exploded behind them.


	8. Chapter 8

**LEO**  

I kept looking back. I half expected to see those nasty sun dragons toting a flying chariot with a screaming magical saleswoman throwing potions, but nothing followed us.

I steered the dragon toward the southwest. Eventually, the smoke from the burning department store faded in the distance, but I didn’t relax until the suburbs of Chicago gave way to snowy fields, and the sun began to set.  
  
“Good job, Festus.” I patted the dragon’s metal hide. “You did awesome.”  
  
The dragon shuddered. Gears popped and clicked in his neck.  
  
I frowned. I didn’t like those noises. If the control disk was failing again - No, hopefully it was something minor. Something I could fix.  
  
“I’ll give you a tune-up next time we land,” I promised. “You’ve earned some motor oil and Tabasco sauce.”  
  
Festus whirled his teeth, but even that sounded weak. He flew at a steady pace, his great wings angling to catch the wind, but he was carrying a heavy load. Two cages in his claws plus three people on his back - the more I thought about it, the more worried I got. Even metal dragons had limits.  
  
“Leo.” Millie patted my shoulder, the gentleness in her voice showing through a little - probably had something to do with how tired she must be, judging by how exhausted she looked. “You feeling okay?”  
  
“Yeah... not bad for a brainwashed zombie.” I hoped I didn’t look as embarrassed as I felt. “Thanks for saving us back there, sunshine. You too, beauty queen. If you two hadn’t talked me out of that spell-”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Piper said.  
  
But I worried a lot. I felt terrible about how easily Medea had set me against my best friend. And those feelings hadn’t come from nowhere - my resentment of the way Jason always got the spotlight and didn’t really seem to need me. I did feel that way sometimes, even if I wasn’t proud of it.  
  
What bothered me more was the news about my mom. Medea had seen the future down in the Underworld. That was how her patron, the woman in the black earthen robes, had come to the machine shop seven years ago to scare me, ruin my life. That’s how my mother had died - because of something I might do someday. So in a weird way, even if my fire powers weren’t to blame, Mom’s death was still my fault.  
  
When we had left Medea in that exploding store, I had felt a little too good. I hoped she wouldn’t make it out, and would go right back to the Fields of Punishment, where she belonged. Those feelings didn’t make me proud, either.  
  
And if souls were coming back from the Underworld... was it possible my mom could be brought back?  
  
I tried to put the idea aside. That was Frankenstein thinking. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right. Medea might’ve been brought back to life, but she hadn’t seemed quite human, with the hissing nails and the glowing head and whatnot.  
  
No, my mom had passed on. Thinking any other way would just drive me nuts. Still, the thought kept poking at him, like an echo of Medea’s voice.  
  
“We’re going to have to put down soon,” I warned my friends. “Couple more hours, maybe, to make sure Medea’s not following us. I don’t think Festus can fly much longer than that.”  
  
“Yeah,” Piper agreed. “Coach Hedge probably wants to get out of his canary cage, too. Question is - where are we going?”  
  
“The Bay Area,” I guessed. The memories of the department store were fuzzy, but I seemed to remember hearing that. “Didn’t Medea say something about Oakland?”  
  
Piper didn’t respond for so long, I wondered if I’d said something wrong.  
  
“Piper’s dad,” Jason put in. “Something’s happened to your dad, right? He got lured into some kind of trap.”  
  
Piper let out a shaky breath. “Look, Medea said you would both die in the Bay Area. And besides... even if we went there, the Bay Area is huge! First we need to find Aeolus and drop off the storm spirits. Boreas said Aeolus was the only one who could tell us exactly where to go.”  
  
I grunted. “So how do we find Aeolus?”  
  
Jason leaned forward. “You mean you don’t see it?” He pointed ahead of us, but I didn’t see anything except clouds and the lights of a few towns glowing in the dusk.  
  
“What?” I asked. “That... whatever it is,” Jason said. “In the air.”  
  
I glanced back. Piper and Millie looked just as confused as I was.  
  
“Right,” I said. “Could you be more specific on the ‘whatever-it-is’ part?”  
  
“Like a vapor trail,” Jason said. “Except it’s glowing. Really faint, but it’s definitely there. We’ve been following it since Chicago, so I figured you saw it.”  
  
I shook my head. “Maybe Festus can sense it. You think Aeolus made it?”  
  
“Well, it’s a magic trail in the wind,” Jason said. “Aeolus is the wind god. I think he knows we’ve got prisoners for him. He’s telling us where to fly.”  
  
“Or it’s another trap,” Piper said.  
  
Her tone worried me. She didn’t just sound nervous. She sounded broken with despair, like we’d already sealed our fate, and like it was her fault.  
  
“Pipes, you all right?” I asked.  
  
“Don’t call me that.”  
  
“Okay, fine. You don’t like any of the names I make up for you. But if your dad’s in trouble and we can help-”  
  
“You can’t,” she said, her voice getting shakier. “Look, I’m tired. If you don’t mind...”  
  
She leaned back against Jason and closed her eyes.  
  
All right, I thought - pretty clear signal she didn’t want to talk.  
  
We flew in silence for a while. Festus seemed to know where he was going. He kept his course, gently curving toward the southwest and hopefully Aeolus’s fortress. Another wind god to visit, a whole new flavor of crazy - Oh, boy, I couldn’t wait.  
  
I had way too much on my mind to sleep, but now that I was out danger, my body had different ideas. My energy level was crashing. The monotonous beat of the dragon’s wings made my eyes feel heavy. My head started to nod.  
  
“Catch a few Z’s,” Jason said. “It’s cool. Hand me the reins.”  
  
“Nah, I’m okay-”  
  
“Leo,” Jason said, “you’re not a machine. Besides, I’m the only one who can see the vapor trail. I’ll make sure we stay on course.”  
  
My eyes started to close on their own. “All right. Maybe just...”  
  
I didn’t finish the sentence before slumping forward against the dragon’s warm neck. The last thing I felt in my half-consciousness was a pair of arms snaking around my waist and a warmth against my back.  
  
In my dream, I heard a voice full of static, like a bad AM radio: “Hello? Is this thing working?”  
  
My vision came into focus - sort of. Everything was hazy and gray, with bands of interference running across my sight. I’d never dreamed with a bad connection before.  
  
I seemed to be in a workshop. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw bench saws, metal lathes, and tool cages. A forge glowed cheerfully against one wall.  
  
It wasn’t the camp forge - too big. Not Bunker 9 - much warmer and more comfortable, obviously not abandoned.  
  
Then I realized something was blocking the middle of his view - something large and fuzzy, and so close, I had to cross my eyes to see it properly. It was a large ugly face.  
  
“Holy mother!” I yelped.  
  
The face backed away and came into focus. Staring down at me was a bearded man in grimy blue coveralls. His face was lumpy and covered with welts, as if he’d been bitten by a million bees, or dragged across gravel. Possibly both.  
  
“Humph,” the man said. “Holy father, boy. I should think you’d know the difference.”  
  
I blinked. “Hephaestus?”  
  
Being in the presence of my father for the first time, I probably should’ve been speechless or awestruck or something. But after what I’d been through the last couple of days, with Cyclopes and a sorceress and a face in the potty sludge, all I felt was a surge of complete annoyance.  
  
“Now you show up?” I demanded. “After fifteen years? Great parenting, Fur Face. Where do you get off sticking your ugly nose into my dreams?”  
  
The god raised an eyebrow. A little spark caught fire in his beard. Then he threw back his head and laughed so loudly, the tools rattled on the workbenches.  
  
“You sound just like your mother,” Hephaestus said. “I miss Esperanza.”  
  
“She’s been dead seven years.” My voice trembled. “Not that you’d care.”  
  
“But I do care, boy. About both of you.”  
  
“Uh-huh. Which is why I never saw you before today.”  
  
The god made a rumbling sound in his throat, but he looked more uncomfortable than angry. He pulled a miniature motor from his pocket and began fiddling absently with the pistons - just the way Leo did when he was nervous.

“I’m not good with children,” the god confessed. “Or people. Well, any organic life forms, really. I thought about speaking to you at your mom’s funeral. Then again when you were in fifth grade... that science project you made, steam-powered chicken chucker. Very impressive.”  
  
“You saw that?”  
  
Hephaestus pointed to the nearest worktable, where a shiny bronze mirror showed a hazy image of me asleep on the dragon’s back, Millie leaning forward on my back. She looked to be asleep as well, and I had to tear my gaze away from her face - she looked so calm and relaxed, it made her all the more beautiful, especially with her lips nearly forming a smile instead of a scary frown.  
  
“Is that me?” I asked. “Like - me right now, having this dream - looking at me having a dream?”  
  
Hephaestus scratched his beard. “Now you’ve confused me. But yes - it’s you. I’m always keeping an eye on you, Leo. But talking to you is, um... different.”  
  
“You’re scared,” I said.  
  
“Grommets and gears!” the god yelled. “Of course not!”  
  
“Yeah, you’re scared.” But my anger seeped away. I’d spent years thinking about what I’d say to his dad if they ever met - how I would chew him out for being a deadbeat. Now, looking at that bronze mirror, I thought about my dad watching my progress over the years, even my stupid science experiments.  
  
Maybe Hephaestus was still a jerk, but I kind of understood where he was coming from. I knew about running away from people, not fitting in. I knew about hiding out in a workshop rather than trying to deal with organic life forms.  
  
“So,” I grumbled, “you keep track of all your kids? You got like twelve back at camp. How’d you even - Never mind. I don’t want to know.”  
  
Hephaestus might’ve blushed, but his face was so beat up and red, it was hard to tell. “Gods are different from mortals, boy. We can exist in many places at once - wherever people call on us, wherever our sphere of influence is strong. In fact, it’s rare our entire essence is ever together in one place - our true form. It’s dangerous, powerful enough to destroy any mortal who looks upon us. So, yes... lots of children. Add to that our different aspects, Greek and Roman-” The god’s fingers froze on his engine project. “Er, that is to say, being a god is complicated. And yes, I try to keep an eye on all my children, but you especially.”  
  
I was pretty sure Hephaestus had almost slipped and said something important, but I wasn’t sure what.  
  
“Why contact me now?” I asked. “I thought the gods had gone silent.”  
  
“We have,” Hephaestus grumped. “Zeus’s orders - very strange, even for him. He’s blocked all visions, dreams, and Iris-messages to and from Olympus. Hermes is sitting around bored out of his mind because he can’t deliver the mail, and Apollo hates not being able to see everything from the sky. He's also keen to see his daughter succeed. Fortunately, I kept my old pirate broadcasting equipment.”  
  
Hephaestus patted a machine on the table. It looked like a combination satellite dish, V-6 engine, and espresso maker. Each time Hephaestus jostled the machine, my dream flickered and changed color.  
  
“Used this in the Cold War,” the god said fondly. “Radio Free Hephaestus. Those were the days. I keep it around for pay-for-view, mostly, or making viral brain videos-”  
  
“Viral brain videos?”  
  
“But now it’s come in handy again. If Zeus knew I was contacting you, he’d have my hide.”  
  
“Why is Zeus being such a jerk?”  
  
“Hrumph. He excels at that, boy.” Hephaestus called him boy as if I were an annoying machine part - an extra washer, maybe, that had no clear purpose, but that Hephaestus didn’t want to throw away for fear he might need it someday.  
  
Not exactly heartwarming. Then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be called “son.” I wasn’t about to start calling this big awkward ugly guy “Dad.”  
  
Hephaestus got tired of his engine and tossed it over his shoulder. Before it could hit the floor, it sprouted helicopter wings and flew itself into a recycling bin.  
  
“It was the second Titan War, I suppose,” Hephaestus said. “That’s what got Zeus upset. We gods were... well, embarrassed. Don’t think there’s any other way to say it.”  
  
“But you won,” I said.  
  
The god grunted. “We won because the demigods of” - again he hesitated, as if he’d almost made a slip - “of Camp Half-Blood took the lead. We won because our children fought our battles for us, smarter than we did. If we’d relied on Zeus’s plan, we would’ve all gone down to Tartarus fighting the storm giant Typhon, and Kronos would’ve won. Bad enough mortals won our war for us, but then that young upstart, Percy Jackson-”  
  
“The guy who’s missing.”  
  
“Hmph. Yes. Him. He had the nerve to turn down our offer of immortality and tell us to pay better attention to our children. Er, no offense.”  
  
“Oh, how could I take offense? Please, go on ignoring me.”  
  
“Mighty understanding of you...” Hephaestus frowned, then sighed wearily. “That was sarcasm, wasn’t it? Machines don’t have sarcasm, usually. But as I was saying, the gods felt ashamed, shown up by mortals. At first, of course, we were grateful. But after a few months, those feelings turned bitter. We’re gods, after all. We need to be admired, looked up to, held in awe and admiration.”  
  
“Even if you’re wrong?”  
  
“Especially then! And to have Jackson refuse our gift, as if being mortal were somehow better than being a god... well, that stuck in Zeus’s craw. He decided it was high time we got back to traditional values. Gods were to be respected. Our children were to be seen and not visited. Olympus was closed. At least that was part of his reasoning. And, of course, we started hearing of bad things stirring under the earth.”  
  
“The giants, you mean. Monsters re-forming instantly. The dead rising again. Little stuff like that?”  
  
“Aye, boy.” Hephaestus turned a knob on his pirate broadcasting machine. My dream sharpened to full color, but the god’s face was such a riot of red welts and yellow and black bruises, I wished it would go back to black and white.  
  
“Zeus thinks he can reverse the tide,” the god said, “lull the earth back to sleep as long as we stay quiet. None of us really believes that. And I don’t mind saying, we’re in no shape to fight another war. We barely survived the Titans. If we’re repeating the old pattern, what comes next is even worse.”  
  
“The giants,” I said. “Hera said demigods and gods had to join forces to defeat them. Is that true?”  
  
“Mmm. I hate to agree with my mother about anything, but yes. Those giants are tough to kill, boy. They’re a different breed.”  
  
“Breed? You make them sound like racehorses.”  
  
“Ha!” the god said. “More like war dogs. Back in the beginning, y’see, everything in creation came from the same parents - Gaea and Ouranos, Earth and Sky. They had their different batches of children - your Titans, your Elder Cyclopes, and so forth. Then Kronos, the head Titan - well, you’ve probably heard how he chopped up his father Ouranos with a scythe and took over the world. Then we gods came along, children of the Titans, and defeated them. But that wasn’t the end of it. The earth bore a new batch of children, except they were sired by Tartarus, the spirit of the eternal abyss - the darkest, most evil place in the Underworld. Those children, the giants, were bred for one purpose - revenge on us for the fall of the Titans. They rose up to destroy Olympus, and they came awfully close.”  
  
Hephaestus’s beard began to smolder. He absently swatted out the flames. “What my blasted mother Hera is doing now - she’s a meddling fool playing a dangerous game, but she’s right about one thing: you demigods have to unite. That’s the only way to open Zeus’s eyes, convince the Olympians they must accept your help. And that’s the only way to defeat what’s coming. You’re a big part of that, Leo. ”  
  
The god’s gaze seemed far away. I wondered if he really could split himself into different parts - where else was he right now? Maybe his Greek side was fixing a car or going on a date, while his Roman side was watching a ball game and ordering pizza. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to have multiple personalities. I hoped it wasn’t hereditary.  
  
“Why me?” I asked, and as soon as I said it, more questions flooded out. “Why claim me now? Why not when I was thirteen, like you’re supposed to? Or you could’ve claimed me at seven, before my mom died! Why didn’t you find me earlier? Why didn’t you warn me about this?”  
  
My hand burst into flames.  
  
Hephaestus regarded him sadly. “Hardest part, boy. Letting my children walk their own paths. Interfering doesn’t work. The Fates make sure of that. As for the claiming, you were a special case, boy. The timing had to be right. I can’t explain it much more, but-”  
  
My dream went fuzzy. Just for a moment, it turned into a rerun of Wheel of Fortune. Then Hephaestus came back into focus.  
  
“Blast,” he said. “I can’t talk much longer. Zeus is sensing an illegal dream. He is lord of the air, after all, including the airwaves. Just listen, boy: you have a role to play. Your friends are right - fire is a gift, not a curse. I don’t give that blessing to just anyone. They’ll never defeat the giants without you, much less the mistress they serve. She’s worse than any god or Titan.”  
  
“Who?” I demanded.  
  
Hephaestus frowned, his image becoming fuzzier. “I told you. Yes, I’m pretty sure I told you. Just be warned: along the way, you’re going to lose some friends and some valuable tools. But that isn’t your fault, Leo. Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines. And everything can be reused.”  
  
“What do you mean? I don’t like the sound of that.”  
  
“No, you shouldn’t.” Hephaestus’s image was barely visible now, just a blob in the static. “Just watch out for-”  
  
My dream switched to Wheel of Fortune just as the wheel hit Bankrupt and the audience said, “Awwww!”  
  
Then I snapped awake to Cath, Jason and Piper screaming.  
  
We spiraled through the dark in a free fall, still on the dragon’s back, but Festus’s hide was cold. His ruby eyes were dim.  
  
“Not again!” I yelled. “You can’t fall again!”  
  
I could barely hold on. The wind stung my eyes, but I managed to pull open the panel on the dragon’s neck. I toggled the switches. I tugged the wires. The dragon’s wings flapped once, but I caught a whiff of burning bronze. The drive system was overloaded. Festus didn’t have the strength to keep flying, and I couldn’t get to the main control panel on the dragon’s head - not in midair. I saw the lights of a city below them - just flashes in the dark as we plummeted in circles. we had only seconds before we crashed.  
  
“Jason!” I screamed. “Take the girls and fly out of here!”  
  
“What?”  
  
“We need to lighten the load! I might be able to reboot Festus, but he’s carrying too much weight!”

“What about you?” Piper cried. “If you can’t reboot him-”  
  
“I’ll be fine,” I yelled. “Just follow me to the ground. Go!”  
  
Jason grabbed Piper around the waist, who grabbed hold of Millie in turn. The three of them unbuckled their harnesses, and in a flash they were gone - shooting into the air.  
  
“Now,” I said. “Just you and me, Festus - and two heavy cages. You can do it, boy!”  
  
I talked to the dragon while I worked, falling at terminal velocity. I could see the city lights below me, getting closer and closer. I summoned fire in my hand so I could see what I was doing, but the wind kept extinguishing it.  
  
I pulled a wire that I thought connected the dragon’s nerve center to its head, hoping for a little wake-up jolt.  
  
Festus groaned - metal creaking inside his neck. His eyes flickered weakly to life, and he spread his wings. Our fall turned into a steep glide.  
  
“Good!” I said. “Come on, big boy. Come on!”  
  
We were still flying in way too hot, and the ground was too close. I needed a place to land - fast.  
  
There was a big river - no. Not good for a fire-breathing dragon. I’d never get Festus out from the bottom if we sank, especially in freezing temperatures. Then, on the riverbanks, I spotted a white mansion with a huge snowy lawn inside a tall brick perimeter fence - like some rich person’s private compound, all of it blazing with light. A perfect landing field. I did my best to steer the dragon toward it, and Festus seemed to come back to life. We could make this!  
  
Then everything went wrong. As we approached the lawn, spotlights along the fence fixed on them, blinding me. I heard bursts like tracer fire, the sound of metal being cut to shreds—and _BOOM_.  
  
I blacked out.

I kept feeling like someone was tugging on my brain, trying to get me to let go of something - my body? - but there was something countering it's hold on me. A sound - a song. I gravitated towards it on instinct, my vision clearing.  
  
When I came to my senses, Jason and Piper were leaning over me. I was lying in the snow, covered in mud and grease. I spit a clump of frozen grass out of my mouth.  
  
“Where-”  
  
“Lie still.” Piper had tears in her eyes. “You rolled pretty hard when- when Festus-”  
  
“Where is he?” I sat up, but my head felt like it was floating. We’d landed inside the compound. Something had happened on the way in - gunfire?  
  
“Seriously, Leo,” Millie said, stopping her singing. I noticed tears streaking across her face, which worried me. “You could be hurt. You shouldn’t-”  
  
I pushed myself to my feet. Then I saw the wreckage. Festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they’d rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged.  
  
Festus hadn’t been so lucky.  
  
The dragon had disintegrated. His limbs were scattered across the lawn. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion’s yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow.  
  
“No,” I sobbed. I ran to the dragon’s head and stroked its snout. The dragon’s eyes flickered weakly. Oil leaked out of his ear.  
  
“You can’t go,” I pleaded. “You’re the best thing I ever fixed.”  
  
The dragon’s head whirred its gears, as if it were purring. Jason and Piper stood next to him, but I kept my eyes fixed on the dragon, even when Millie knelt next to me and put her forehead on my shoulder.  
  
I remembered what Hephaestus had said: _That isn’t your fault, Leo. Nothing lasts forever, not even the best machines._  
  
My dad had been trying to warn me.  
  
“It’s not fair,” I said. "I know," Millie responded, her voice cracking.  
  
The dragon clicked. _Long creak. Two short clicks. Creak. Creak_. Almost like a pattern... triggering an old memory in my mind. I realized Festus was trying to say something. He was using Morse code - just like my mom had taught me years ago. I listened more intently, translating the clicks into letters: a simple message repeating over and over.  
  
“Yeah,” I said. “I understand. I will. I promise.”  
  
The dragon’s eyes went dark. Festus was gone.  
  
I cried. I wasn’t even embarrassed. My friends stood on either side, patting my shoulders, saying comforting things; but the buzzing in my ears drowned out their words. The only thing that eventually rang though my brain was Millie's singing. I had no idea what the words meant, but I somehow recognized the text to be an Ancient Greek blessing - one you'd give to a living creature that had passed. She was singing a mourning song.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to her angelic voice, until finally Jason said, “I’m so sorry, man. What did you promise Festus?”  
  
I sniffled. I opened the dragon’s head panel, just to be sure, but the control disk was cracked and burned beyond repair.  
  
“Something my dad told me,” I said. “Everything can be reused.”  
  
“Your dad talked to you?” Jason asked. “When was this?”  
  
Leo didn’t answer. He worked at the dragon’s neck hinges until the head was detached. It weighed about a hundred pounds, but I managed to hold it in my arms. I looked up at the starry sky and said, “Take him back to the bunker, Dad. Please, until I can reuse him. I’ve never asked you for anything.”  
  
The wind picked up, and the dragon’s head floated out of my arms like it weighed nothing. It flew into the sky and disappeared.  
  
Piper looked at me in amazement. “He answered you?”  
  
“I had a dream,” I managed. “Tell you later.”  
  
I knew I owed my friends a better explanation, but I could barely speak. I felt like a broken machine myself - like someone had removed one little part of me, and now I’d never be complete. I might move, I might talk, I might keep going and do my job. But I’d always be off balance, never calibrated exactly right.  
  
Still, I couldn’t afford to break down completely. Otherwise, Festus had died for nothing. I had to finish this quest - for my friends, for my mom, for my dragon.  
  
I looked around. The large white mansion glowed in the center of the grounds. Tall brick walls with lights and security cameras surrounded the perimeter, but now I could see - or rather sense - just how well those walls were defended.  
  
“Where are we?” I asked. “I mean, what city?”  
  
“Omaha, Nebraska,” Piper said. “I saw a billboard as we flew in. But I don’t know what this mansion is. We came in right behind you, but as you were landing, Leo, I swear it looked like - I don’t know-”  
  
“Lasers,” I said. I picked up a piece of dragon wreckage and threw it toward the top of the fence. Immediately a turret popped up from the brick wall and a beam of pure heat incinerated the bronze plating to ashes.  
  
Jason whistled. “Some defense system. How are we even alive?”  
  
“Festus,” I said miserably. “He took the fire. The lasers sliced him to bits as he came in so they didn’t focus on you. I led him into a death trap.”  
  
“You couldn’t have known,” Piper said. “He saved our lives again.”  
  
“But what now?” Jason said. “The main gates are locked, and I’m guessing I can’t fly us out of here without getting shot down.”  
  
I looked up the walkway at the big white mansion. “Since we can’t go out, we’ll have to go in.”


	9. Chapter 9

**EMILY-CATHERINE**

We would've died five times on the way to the front door if not for Leo.  
  
First it was the motion-activated trapdoor on the sidewalk, then the lasers on the steps, then the nerve gas dispenser on the porch railing, the pressure-sensitive poison spikes in the welcome mat, and of course the exploding doorbell.  
  
Leo deactivated all of them. It was like he could smell the traps, and he picked just the right tool out of his belt to disable them.  
  
“You’re amazing, man,” Jason said.  
  
Leo scowled as he examined the front door lock. “Yeah, amazing,” he said. “Can’t fix a dragon right, but I’m amazing.”  
  
“Hey, that wasn’t your-”  
  
“Front door’s already unlocked,” Leo announced.  
  
Piper stared at the door in disbelief. “It is? All those traps, and the door’s unlocked?”  
  
Leo turned the knob. The door swung open easily. He stepped inside without hesitation, me right behind him. Piper followed after a few moments, and then Jason.

My first impression of the house: Dark.  
  
From the echo of our footsteps I could tell the entry hall was enormous, even bigger than Boreas’s penthouse; but the only illumination came from the yard lights outside. A faint glow peeked through the breaks in the thick velvet curtains. The windows rose about ten feet tall. Spaced between them along the walls were life-size metal statues. As my eyes adjusted, I saw sofas arranged in a U in the middle of the room, with a central coffee table and one large chair at the far end. A massive chandelier glinted overhead. Along the back wall stood a row of closed doors.  
  
“Where’s the light switch?” Jason's voice echoed alarmingly through the room.  
  
“Don’t see one,” Leo said.  
  
“Fire?” Piper suggested.  
  
Leo held out his hand, but nothing happened. “It’s not working.”  
  
“Your fire is out? Why?” Piper asked.  
  
“Well, if I knew that-”  
  
“Okay, okay,” she said. “What do we do - explore?”  
  
I shook my head. “After all those traps outside? Bad idea.”  
  
My skin tingled. I hated being a demigod. Looking around, I didn’t see a comfortable room to hang out in. I imagined vicious storm spirits lurking in the curtains, dragons under the carpet, a chandelier made of lethal ice shards, ready to impale us.  
  
“Leo’s right,” Jason said. “We’re not separating again - not like in Detroit.”  
  
“Oh, thank you for reminding me of the Cyclopes.” Piper’s voice quavered. “I needed that.”  
  
“It’s a few hours until dawn,” Jason guessed. “Too cold to wait outside. Let’s bring the cages in and make camp in this room. Wait for daylight; then we can decide what to do.”  
  
Nobody offered a better idea, so we rolled in the cages with Coach Hedge and the storm spirits, then settled in. Thankfully, Leo didn’t find any poison throw pillows or electric whoopee cushions on the sofas.  
  
Leo didn’t seem in the mood to make more tacos. Besides, we had no fire, so we settled for cold rations.

As we ate, I studied the metal statues along the walls. They looked like Greek gods or heroes. Maybe that was a good sign. Or maybe they were used for target practice. On the coffee table sat a tea service and a stack of glossy brochures, but I couldn’t make out the words. The big chair at the other end of the table looked like a throne. None of us tried to sit in it.

The canary cages didn’t make the place any less creepy. The venti kept churning in their prison, hissing and spinning, and I got the uncomfortable feeling they were watching us.  
  
As for Coach Hedge, he was still frozen mid-shout, his cudgel raised. Leo was working on the cage, trying to open it with various tools, but the lock seemed to be giving him a hard time.  
  
Jason looked like he was starting to nod off, which seemed about right, as he'd taken the last two watches.  
  
“Get some sleep,” Leo said, still working on the locked cage. “It’s your turn.”  
  
Jason took a deep breath. “Leo, I’m sorry about that stuff I said in Chicago. That wasn’t me. You’re not annoying and you do take stuff seriously - especially your work. I wish I could do half the things you can do.”  
  
Leo lowered his screwdriver. He looked at the ceiling and shook his head like, _What am I gonna do with this guy?_  
  
“I try very hard to be annoying,” Leo said. “Don’t insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I’m a lowly mechanic. You’re like the prince of the sky, son of the Lord of the Universe. I’m supposed to resent you.”  
  
“Lord of the Universe?”  
  
“Sure, you’re all - bam! Lightning man. And ‘Watch me fly. I am the eagle that soars-’”  
  
“Shut up, Valdez.”  
  
Leo managed a little smile. “Yeah, see. I do annoy you.”  
  
“I apologize for apologizing.”  
  
“Thank you.” He went back to work, but the tension seemed to have eased between them. Leo still looked sad and exhausted - just not quite so angry.  
  
“Go to sleep, Jason,” he ordered. “It’s gonna take a few hours to get this goat man free. Then I still got to figure out how to make the winds a smaller holding cell, ’cause I am not lugging that canary cage to California.”  
  
“You did fix Festus, you know,” Jason said. “You gave him a purpose again. I think this quest was the high point of his life.”  
  
I blinked back some tears. Leo just sighed.  
  
“I hope,” he said. “Now, sleep, man. I want some time without you organic life forms.”  
  
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but Jason didn’t argue. He closed his eyes and his breathing evened out almost immediately

"Leo," I spoke up, sitting down next to him. "I know that look in your eyes. You blame yourself." He turned to me, and our eyes locked. His eyes held so much emotion, I could barely speak for a moment. I forced myself to look away before I drowned. A few moments passed before he spoke.

"How could you tell?" I looked down, and I felt my guard going down, just as had done a few times on this quest. This time though I let it.

"I see that look every time I see myself in a mirror."

I clenched my jaw and looked up at the ceiling to stop myself from shedding a single tear. After a few moments, when I was sure enough I wouldn't cry, I turned my gaze back to him. He was looking at me with confusion, urging to go on. Before I could think rationally, I started speaking.

"I discovered my singing powers after the Battle of the Labyrinth." He looked confused. "A huge fight at Camp, monsters attacked us from the labyrinth in an attempt to weaken us enough that Kronos could destroy Olympus more easily." He nodded for me to go on.

"I was in the infirmary, and Will had learned how to use hymns and such to help the healing process. I tried it, and it worked too well. There was no injury left after I was done, and everyone was asleep... including me. I was in a coma for nearly three weeks. Will told me they thought I wouldn't make it."

Leo put his hand over mine, and I didn't pull away.

"That's when I decided not to train my voice until after the war, because we needed as many fighters as we could get, especially when we found out the Ares cabin wouldn't be fighting. It's a long story. Eventually, though, Silena Beauregard - the former head counsellor of Piper's cabin, and my best friend next to Charlie - she disguised herself as Clarisse and led them to a battle with a drakon, one that was destined to die at the hand of a child of Ares. She knew that, and yet she went in head-first." My voice cracked."

"I was the first to get to her when she'd gotten sprayed with deadly acid, and I... I couldn't sing. I couldn't find my voice, because I was scared - not for myself, but scared of somehow making it worse. I was scared I'd accidentally make her sleep and cause her death... and, by doing so, I did. I couldn't protect her."

My voice was barely a whisper at the end, and I realized I was squeezing his hand really tightly.

"Millie, that wasn't your fault. It was her decision to take the risk. You can't blame anyone for it."

"That's what she told me. She knew I hold grudges, especially against myself. She told me not to blame anyone but her, she made me promise. I promised her, and yet I can't get myself to forgive anyone. If anything had been different, if anyone had acted differently, she might've still been here." He pursed his lips, and I knew I'd scared him off. I started to mentally reprimand myself for opening up.

"That's why you're so protective of Piper." "Huh?" I frowned at him. Why was he still talking to me?

"You act like she's a little sister that you need to keep safe and healthy. She reminds you of Silena, doesn't she?" I hadn't realized, but Leo was right. We both looked at her sleeping form, and I knew the similarities.

"I guess so..." "And hey, for what it's worth, I know Silena would be proud of you, no matter what. I know I'm proud of you." He grinned a little, and I couldn't suppress a small smile etching its way onto my face.

"There you go." He squeezed my hand and held it for a few more seconds. "Now get some sleep. It's gonna take a while to get these cages open, and I still have to figure out what to do with the storm spirits." I nodded and curled up my legs. I leaned my head on his lap and was out within seconds.

I only woke when the yelling started.

“Ahhhggggggh!”  
  
Jason leaped to his feet. I blinked a few times, letting my eyes adjust to the sunlight.

“Coach is awake,” Leo said, which was kind of unnecessary. Gleeson Hedge was capering around on his furry hindquarters, swinging his club and yelling, “Die!” as he smashed the tea set, whacked the sofas, and charged at the throne.  
  
“Coach!” Jason yelled.  
  
Hedge turned, breathing hard. His eyes were so wild, I was afraid he might attack. The satyr was wearing a orange polo shirt and a coach’s whistle, but his horns were clearly visible above his curly hair, and his beefy hindquarters were definitely all goat. Could you call a goat beefy? I put the thought aside.  
  
“You’re the new kid,” Hedge said, lowering his club. “Jason.” He looked at Leo, then Piper, who’d apparently also just woken up. Her hair looked like it had become a nest for a friendly hamster. He then zeroed in on me.  
  
“Solace, Valdez, McLean,” the coach said. “What’s going on? We were at the Grand Canyon. The anemoi thuellai were attacking and-” He zeroed in on the storm spirit cage, and his eyes went back to DEFCON 1. “Die!”  
  
“Whoa, Coach!” Leo stepped in his path, which was pretty brave, even though Gleeson was six inches shorter. “It’s okay. They’re locked up. We just sprang you from the other cage.”  
  
“Cage? Cage? What’s going on? Just because I’m a satyr doesn’t mean I can’t have you doing plank push-ups, Valdez!”  
  
Jason cleared his throat. “Coach- Gleeson- um, whatever you want us to call you. You saved us at the Grand Canyon. You were totally brave.”  
  
“Of course I was!”  
  
“The extraction team came and took us to Camp Half-Blood. We thought we’d lost you. Then we got word the storm spirits had taken you back to their- um, operator, Medea.”  
  
“That witch! Wait - that’s impossible. She’s mortal. She’s dead.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Leo said, “somehow she got not dead anymore.”  
  
Gleeson nodded, his eyes narrowing. “So! You were sent on a dangerous quest to rescue me. Excellent!”  
  
“Um.” Piper got to her feet, holding out her hands so he wouldn’t attack her. “Actually, Glee- can I still call you Coach Hedge? Gleeson seems wrong. We’re on a quest for something else. We kind of found you by accident.”  
  
“Oh.” The coach’s spirits seemed to deflate, but only for a second. Then his eyes lit up again. “But there are no accidents! Not on quests. This was meant to happen! So, this is the witch’s lair, eh? Why is everything gold?”  
  
“Gold?” I looked around. From the way Leo, Jason and Piper caught their breath, I guessed they hadn’t noticed yet either.  
  
The room was full of gold - the statues, the tea set Hedge had smashed, the chair that was definitely a throne. Even the curtains - which seemed to have opened by themselves at daybreak - appeared to be woven of gold fiber.  
  
“Nice,” Leo said. “No wonder they got so much security.”  
  
“This isn’t-” Piper stammered. “This isn’t Medea’s place, Coach. It’s some rich person’s mansion in Omaha. We got away from Medea and crash-landed here.”  
  
“It’s destiny, cupcakes!” Hedge insisted. “I’m meant to protect you. What’s the quest?”  
  
Before I could decide if I wanted to explain or just shove Gleeson back into his cage, a door opened at the far end of the room.  
  
A pudgy man in a white bathrobe stepped out with a golden toothbrush in his mouth. He had a white beard and one of those long, old-fashioned sleeping caps pressed down over his white hair. He froze when he saw them, and the toothbrush fell out of his mouth.  
  
He glanced into the room behind him and called, “Son? Lit, come out here, please. There are strange people in the throne room.”  
  
Coach Hedge did the obvious thing. He raised his club and shouted, “Die!”  
  
It took all four of us to hold back the satyr. “Whoa, Coach!” Jason said. “Bring it down a few notches.” A younger man charged into the room. I guessed he must be Lit, the old guy’s son. He was dressed in pajama pants with a sleeveless T-shirt that said cornhuskers, and he held a sword that looked like it could husk a lot of things besides corn. His ripped arms were covered in scars, and his face, framed by curly dark hair, would’ve been handsome if it wasn’t also sliced up.  
  
Lit immediately zeroed in on Jason like he was the biggest threat, and stalked toward him, swinging his sword overhead. “Hold on!” Piper stepped forward, trying for her best calming voice. “This is just a misunderstanding! Everything’s fine.” Lit stopped in his tracks, but he still looked wary. It didn’t help that Hedge was screaming, “I’ll get them! Don’t worry!”  
  
“Gleeson,” I scolded, “they may be friendly. Besides, we’re trespassing in their house.”  
  
“Thank you!” said the old man in the bathrobe. “Now, who are you, and why are you here?”  
  
“Let’s all put our weapons down,” Piper said. “Coach, you first.”  
  
Hedge clenched his jaw. “Just one thwack?”  
  
“No,” Piper said.  
  
“What about a compromise? I’ll kill them first, and if it turns out they were friendly, I’ll apologize.”  
  
“No!” Piper insisted.  
  
“Meh.” The Coach lowered his club.  
  
Piper gave Lit a friendly sorry-about-that smile. Jason looked a little jealous, and I had to suppress a grin.  
  
Lit huffed and sheathed his sword. “You speak well, girl - fortunately for your friends, or I would’ve run them through.”  
  
“Appreciate it,” Leo said. “I try not to get run through before lunchtime.”  
  
The old man in the bathrobe sighed, kicking the teapot that Coach Hedge had smashed. “Well, since you’re here. Please, sit down.”  
  
Lit frowned. “Your Majesty-”  
  
“No, no, it’s fine, Lit,” the old man said. “New land, new customs. They may sit in my presence. After all, they’ve seen me in my nightclothes. No sense observing formalities.” He did his best to smile, though it looked a little forced. “Welcome to my humble home. I am King Midas.”  
  
“Midas? Impossible,” said Coach Hedge. “He died.”  
  
We were sitting on the sofas now, while the king reclined on his throne. Tricky to do that in a bathrobe, and I kept worrying the old guy would forget and uncross his legs. Hopefully he was wearing golden boxers under there.  
  
Lit stood behind the throne, both hands on his sword, glancing at Piper and me and flexing his muscular arms just to be annoying. I rolled my eyes.  
  
Piper sat forward. “What our satyr friend means, Your Majesty, is that you’re the second mortal we’ve met who should be - sorry - dead. King Midas lived thousands of years ago.”  
  
“Interesting.” The king gazed out the windows at the brilliant blue skies and the winter sunlight. In the distance, downtown Omaha looked like a cluster of children’s blocks - way too clean and small for a regular city.  
  
“You know,” the king said, “I think I was a bit dead for a while. It’s strange. Seems like a dream, doesn’t it, Lit?”

“A very long dream, Your Majesty.”  
  
“And yet, now we’re here. I’m enjoying myself very much. I like being alive better.”  
  
“But how?” Piper asked. “You didn’t happen to have a... patron?”  
  
Midas hesitated, but there was a sly twinkle in his eyes. “Does it matter, my dear?”  
  
“We could kill them again,” Hedge suggested.  
  
“Coach, not helping,” Jason said. “Why don’t you go outside and stand guard?”  
  
Leo coughed. “Is that safe? They’ve got some serious security.”  
  
“Oh, yes,” the king said. “Sorry about that. But it’s lovely stuff, isn’t it? Amazing what gold can still buy. Such excellent toys you have in this country!”  
  
He fished a remote control out of his bathrobe pocket and pressed a few buttons - a pass code, I guessed.  
  
“There,” Midas said. “Safe to go out now.”  
  
Coach Hedge grunted. “Fine. But if you need me...” He winked at Jason meaningfully. Then he pointed at himself, pointed two fingers at our hosts, and sliced a finger across his throat. Very subtle sign language.  
  
“Yeah, thanks,” Jason said.  
  
After the satyr left, Piper tried another diplomatic smile. “So... you don’t know how you got here?”  
  
“Oh, well, yes. Sort of,” the king said. He frowned at Lit. “Why did we pick Omaha, again? I know it wasn’t the weather.”  
  
“The oracle,” Lit said.  
  
“Yes! I was told there was an oracle in Omaha.” The king shrugged. “Apparently I was mistaken. But this is a rather nice house, isn’t it? Lit - it’s short for Lityerses, by the way - horrible name, but his mother insisted - Lit has plenty of wide-open space to practice his swordplay. He has quite a reputation for that. They called him the Reaper of Men back in the old days.”  
  
“Oh.” Piper tried to sound enthusiastic. “How nice.”  
  
Lit’s smile was more of a cruel sneer. 

“So,” Jason said. “All this gold-”  
  
The king’s eyes lit up. “Are you here for gold, my boy? Please, take a brochure!”  
  
Jason looked at the brochures on the coffee table. The title said _GOLD: Invest for Eternity_. “Um, you sell gold?”  
  
“No, no,” the king said. “I make it. In uncertain times like these, gold is the wisest investment, don’t you think? Governments fall. The dead rise. Giants attack Olympus. But gold retains its value!”  
  
Leo frowned. “I’ve seen that commercial.”  
  
“Oh, don’t be fooled by cheap imitators!” the king said. “I assure you, I can beat any price for a serious investor. I can make a wide assortment of gold items at a moment’s notice.”  
  
“But...” Piper shook her head in confusion. “Your Majesty, you gave up the golden touch, didn’t you?”  
  
The king looked astonished. “Gave it up?”  
  
“Yes,” Piper said. “You got it from some god-”  
  
“Dionysus,” the king agreed. “I’d rescued one of his satyrs, and in return, the god granted me one wish. I chose the golden touch.”  
  
“But you accidentally turned your own daughter to gold,” Piper remembered. “And you realized how greedy you’d been. So you repented.”  
  
“Repented!” King Midas looked at Lit incredulously. “You see, son? You’re away for a few thousand years, and the story gets twisted all around. My dear girl, did those stories ever say I’d lost my magic touch?”  
  
“Well, I guess not. They just said you learned how to reverse it with running water, and you brought your daughter back to life.”  
  
“That’s all true. Sometimes I still have to reverse my touch. There’s no running water in the house because I don’t want accidents” - he gestured to his statues - “but we chose to live next to a river just in case. Occasionally, I’ll forget and pat Lit on the back- ”  
  
Lit retreated a few steps. “I hate that.”  
  
“I told you I was sorry, son. At any rate, gold is wonderful. Why would I give it up?”  
  
“Well …” Piper looked truly lost now. “Isn’t that the point of the story? That you learned your lesson?”  
  
Midas laughed. “My dear, may I see your backpack for a moment? Toss it here.”  
  
Piper hesitated, but she probably wasn’t eager to offend the king. She dumped everything out of the pack and tossed it to Midas. As soon as he caught it, the pack turned to gold, like frost spreading across the fabric. It still looked flexible and soft, but definitely gold. The king tossed it back.  
  
“As you see, I can still turn anything to gold,” Midas said. “That pack is magic now, as well. Go ahead - put your little storm spirit enemies in there.”  
  
“Seriously?” Leo was suddenly interested. He took the bag from Piper and held it up to the cage. As soon as he unzipped the backpack, the winds stirred and howled in protest. The cage bars shuddered. The door of the prison flew open and the winds got vacuumed straight into the pack. Leo zipped it shut and grinned. “Gotta admit. That’s cool.”  
  
“You see?” Midas said. “My golden touch a curse? Please. I didn’t learn any lesson, and life isn’t a story, girl. Honestly, my daughter Zoe was much more pleasant as a gold statue.”  
  
“She talked a lot,” Lit offered.  
  
“Exactly! And so I turned her back to gold.” Midas pointed. There in the corner was a golden statue of a girl with a shocked expression, as if she were thinking, Dad!  
  
“That’s horrible!” Piper said.  
  
“Nonsense. She doesn’t mind. Besides, if I’d learned my lesson, would I have gotten these?”  
  
Midas pulled off his oversize sleeping cap, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or get sick. Midas had long fuzzy gray ears sticking up from his white hair - like Bugs Bunny’s, but they weren’t rabbit ears. They were donkey ears.  
  
“Oh, wow,” Leo said. “I didn’t need to see that.”  
  
“Terrible, isn’t it?” Midas sighed. “A few years after the golden touch incident, I judged a music contest between Apollo and Pan, and I declared Pan the winner. Apollo, sore loser-" "Hey!" I crossed my arms, but he ignored me "- said I must have the ears of an ass, and voilà. This was my reward for being truthful. I tried to keep them a secret. Only my barber knew, but he couldn’t help blabbing.” Midas pointed out another golden statue - a bald man in a toga, holding a pair of shears. “That’s him. He won’t be telling anyone’s secrets again.”  
  
The king smiled. Suddenly he didn’t strike me as a harmless old man in a bathrobe. His eyes had a merry glow to them - the look of a madman who knew he was mad, accepted his madness, and enjoyed it. “Yes, gold has many uses. I think that must be why I was brought back, eh Lit? To bankroll our patron.”  
  
Lit nodded. “That and my good sword arm.”  
  
I glanced at the others . Suddenly the air in the room seemed much colder.  
  
“So you do have a patron,” Jason said. “You work for the giants.”  
  
King Midas waved his hand dismissively. “Well, I don’t care for giants myself, of course. But even supernatural armies need to get paid. I do owe my patron a great debt. I tried to explain that to the last group that came through, but they were very unfriendly. Wouldn’t cooperate at all.”  
  
Jason slipped his hand into his pocket next to me. “The last group?”  
  
“Hunters,” Lit snarled. “Blasted girls from Artemis.”  
  
I sat up straight. Thalia had been here.  
  
“When?” he demanded. “What happened?”  
  
Lit shrugged. “Few days ago? I didn’t get to kill them, unfortunately. They were looking for some evil wolves, or something. Said they were following a trail, heading west. Missing demigod - I don’t recall.”  
  
Percy Jackson, I thought. Always freaking Percy Jackson.  
  
Midas scratched his donkey ears. “Very unpleasant young ladies, those Hunters,” he recalled. “They absolutely refused to be turned into gold. Much of the security system outside I installed to keep that sort of thing from happening again, you know. I don’t have time for those who aren’t serious investors.”  
  
Jason stood warily and glanced at us. We got the message.  
  
“Well,” Piper said, managing a smile. “It’s been a great visit. Welcome back to life. Thanks for the gold bag.”  
  
“Oh, but you can’t leave!” Midas said. “I know you’re not serious investors, but that’s all right! I have to rebuild my collection.”  
  
Lit was smiling cruelly. The king rose, and Leo and Piper moved away from him.  
  
“Don’t worry,” the king assured them. “You don’t have to be turned to gold. I give all my guests a choice - join my collection, or die at the hands of Lityerses. Really, it’s good either way.”  
  
Piper tried to use her charmspeak. “Your Majesty, you can’t-”  
  
Quicker than any old man should’ve been able to move, Midas lashed out and grabbed her wrist.  
  
“No!” I yelled.  
  
But a frost of gold spread over Piper, and in a heartbeat she was a glittering statue. Leo tried to summon fire, but he’d apparently forgotten his power wasn’t working. Midas touched his hand, and Leo transformed into solid metal.  
  
I was so horrified I couldn’t move. I had once again not been able to prevent danger. Panic rose in my throat, and I didn't even have time to try and grab my weapons before I felt a hand on my wrist, and everything went black.  
  
I woke up cold and shivering. I looked around for a quick second - we were in a cave, a small fire smoldering. Piper was sitting next to Jason, Hedge between us and Leo on my other side. I was wrapped in blankets, but might as well have been buried in snow.

Piper shot up.  
  
“Oh, god.” Her teeth chattered. “He turned me to gold!”  
  
“You’re okay now.” Jason leaned over and tucked a warm blanket around her, but she still shivered.  
  
“L-L-Leo?” she managed.  
  
“Present and un-gold-ified.” Leo was also wrapped in blankets. He didn’t look great, but better than I felt. “I got the precious metal treatment too,” he said. “But I came out of it faster. Dunno why. We had to dunk you two in the river to get you back completely. Tried to dry you off, but... it’s really, really cold.” He unwrapped an arm and slung it over my shoulder, almost casually. I huddled close, happy for his high body heat. I sided my chest completely to his underneath our blankets and tried not to blush.  
  
“You’ve both got hypothermia,” Jason said. “We risked as much nectar as we could. Coach Hedge did a little nature magic-”  
  
“Sports medicine.” The coach’s ugly face loomed over her. “Kind of a hobby of mine. Your breath might smell like wild mushrooms and Gatorade for a few days, but it’ll pass. You probably won’t die. Probably.”  
  
“Thanks,” Piper said weakly. “How did you beat Midas?”  
  
Jason told us the story, putting most of it down to luck.  
  
The coach snorted. “Kid’s being modest. You should’ve seen him. Hi-yah! Slice! Boom with the lightning!”  
  
“Coach, you didn’t even see it,” Jason said. “You were outside eating the lawn.”  
  
But the satyr was just warming up. “Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room. Afterward, I told him, ‘Kid, I’m proud of you! If you could just work on your upper body strength—’”  
  
“Coach,” said Jason.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Shut up, please.”  
  
“Sure.” The coach sat down at the fire and started chewing his cudgel.  
  
Jason put his hand on Piper’s forehead and checked her temperature. “Leo, can you stoke the fire?”  
  
“On it.” Leo summoned a baseball-sized clump of flames and lobbed it into the campfire.  
  
“Do I look that bad?” Piper shivered.  
  
“Nah,” Jason said.  
  
“You’re a terrible liar,” she said. “Where are we?”  
  
“Pikes Peak,” Jason said. “Colorado.”  
  
My eyes nearly bulged out of my skull. “But that’s, what - five hundred miles from Omaha?”  
  
“Something like that,” Jason agreed. “I harnessed the storm spirits to bring us this far. They didn’t like it - went a little faster than I wanted, almost crashed us into the mountainside before I could get them back in the bag. I’m not going to be trying that again.”  
  
“Why are we here?”  
  
Leo sniffed. “That’s what I asked him.”  
  
Jason gazed into the storm as if watching for something. “That glittery wind trail we saw yesterday? It was still in the sky, though it had faded a lot. I followed it until I couldn’t see it anymore. Then - honestly I’m not sure. I just felt like this was the right place to stop.”  
  
“’Course it is.” Coach Hedge spit out some cudgel splinters. “Aeolus’s floating palace should be anchored above us, right at the peak. This is one of his favorite spots to dock.”  
  
“Maybe that was it.” Jason knit his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Something else, too...”  
  
“The Hunters were heading west,” Piper remembered. “Do you think they’re around here?”  
  
Jason rubbed his forearm as if the tattoos were bothering him. “I don’t see how anyone could survive on the mountain right now. The storm’s pretty bad. It’s already the evening before the solstice, but we didn’t have much choice except to wait out the storm here. We had to give you two some time to rest before we tried moving.”  
  
He didn’t need to convince me. The wind howling outside the cave scared me, and I wasn't anywhere near being able to stop shivering yet.  
  
“We have to get you warm.” Jason sat next to her and held out his arms a little awkwardly. “Uh, you mind if I...”  
  
“I suppose.” She failed to sound nonchalant.  
  
He put his arms around her and held her. They scooted closer to the fire. Coach Hedge chewed on his club and spit splinters into the fire.  
  
Leo broke out some cooking supplies and started frying burger patties on an iron skillet, one arm still around my shoulder. “So, guys, long as everyone's cuddled up for story time... something I’ve been meaning to tell you. On the way to Omaha, I had this dream. Kinda hard to understand with the static and the Wheel of Fortune breaking in-”  
  
“Wheel of Fortune?” I frowned at him.

“The thing is,” he said, “my dad Hephaestus talked to me.”  
  
Leo told us about his dream. In the firelight, with the wind howling, the story was even creepier. I could imagine the static-filled voice of the god warning about giants who were the sons of Tartarus, and about Leo losing some friends along the way.  
  
I tried to concentrate on something good: Leo's arms around me, the warmth slowly spreading into my body, but I was terrified. “I don’t understand. If demigods and gods have to work together to kill the giants, why would the gods stay silent? If they need us-” I shook my head as Piper spoke, but Gleeson beat me to answering her.  
  
“Ha,” said Coach Hedge. “The gods hate needing humans. They like to be needed by humans, but not the other way around. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before Zeus admits he made a mistake closing Olympus.”  
  
“Coach,” Piper said, “that was almost an intelligent comment.”  
  
Hedge huffed. “What? I’m intelligent! I’m not surprised you cupcakes haven’t heard of the Giant War. The gods don’t like to talk about it. Bad PR to admit you needed mortals to help beat an enemy. That’s just embarrassing.”  
  
“There’s more, though,” Jason said. “When I dreamed about Hera in her cage, she said Zeus was acting unusually paranoid. And Hera- she said she went to those ruins because a voice had been speaking in her head. What if someone’s influencing the gods, like Medea influenced us?”  
  
Piper shuddered. Leo set hamburger buns on the skillet to toast. “Yeah, Hephaestus said something similar, like Zeus was acting weirder than usual. But what bothered me was the stuff my dad didn’t say. Like a couple of times he was talking about the demigods, and how he had so many kids and all. I don’t know. He acted like getting the greatest demigods together was going to be almost impossible - like Hera was trying, but it was a really stupid thing to do, and there was some secret Hephaestus wasn’t supposed to tell me.”

Jason shifted. He looked tense.

“Chiron was the same way back at camp,” he said. “He mentioned a sacred oath not to discuss- something. Coach, you know anything about that?”  
  
“Nah. I’m just a satyr. They don’t tell us the juicy stuff. Especially an old-” He stopped himself.  
  
“An old guy like you?” Piper asked. “But you’re not that old, are you?”  
  
“Hundred and six,” the coach muttered.  
  
Leo coughed. “Say what?”  
  
"Fifty-three in human years." I defended the satyr.

"Still, yeah, I made some enemies on the Council of Cloven Elders. I’ve been a protector a longtime. But they started saying I was getting unpredictable. Too violent. Can you imagine?”  
  
“Wow.” Piper tried not to look at us. “That’s hard to believe.”  
  
Coach scowled. “Yeah, then finally we get a good war going with the Titans, and do they put me on the front lines? No! They send me as far away as possible - the Canadian frontier, can you believe it? Then after the war, they put me out to pasture. The Wilderness School. Bah! Like I’m too old to be helpful just because I like playing offense. All those flower-pickers on the Council - talking about nature.”  
  
“I thought satyrs liked nature,” Piper ventured.  
  
“Shoot, I love nature,” Hedge said. “Nature means big things killing and eating little things! And when you’re a - you know - vertically challenged satyr like me, you get in good shape, you carry a big stick, and you don’t take nothing from no one! That’s nature.” Hedge snorted indignantly. “Flower-pickers. Anyway, I hope you got something vegetarian cooking, Valdez. I don’t do flesh.”  
  
“Yeah, Coach. Don’t eat your cudgel. I got some tofu patties here. Piper’s a vegetarian too. I’ll throw them on in a second.”  
  
The smell of frying burgers filled the air. Piper crinkled her nose, and then her worried expression grew as Leo finished making and handing out the food.  
  
“We need to talk.” She sat up so she could face us. “I don’t want to hide anything from you guys anymore.”  
  
We looked at her - the boys with their mouths full of burger.  
  
“Three nights before the Grand Canyon trip,” she said, “I had a dream vision - a giant, telling me my father had been taken hostage. He told me I had to cooperate, or my dad would be killed.”  
  
The flames crackled.  
  
Finally I said, “Enceladus? You mentioned that name before.”  
  
Coach Hedge whistled. “Big giant. Breathes fire. Not somebody I’d want barbecuing my daddy goat.”  
  
Jason gave him a shut up look. “Piper, go on. What happened next?”  
  
“I- I tried to reach my dad, but all I got was his personal assistant, and she told me not to worry.”  
  
“Jane?” I remembered. “The one Medea called? She was controlling her, wasn't she?”  
  
Piper nodded. “To get my dad back, I had to sabotage this quest. I didn’t realize it would be us. Then after we started the quest, Enceladus sent me another warning: He told me he wanted you two dead. He wants me to lead you to a mountain. I don’t know exactly which one, but it’s in the Bay Area - I could see the Golden Gate Bridge from the summit. I have to be there by noon on the solstice, tomorrow. An exchange.”  
  
She refused to meet our eyes.

Jason scooted next to her and put his arm around her again. “God, Piper. I’m so sorry.”  
  
Leo nodded. “No kidding. You’ve been carrying this around for a week?"

"Piper, we could help you.”  
  
She glared at all three of us. “Why don’t you yell at me or something? I was ordered to kill you!”  
  
“Aw, come on,” Jason said. “You’ve saved us all on this quest. I’d put my life in your hands any day.”  
  
“Same,” Leo said. “Can I have a hug too?”  
  
“You don’t get it!” Piper said. “I’ve probably just killed my dad, telling you this.”  
  
“I doubt it.” Coach Hedge belched. He was eating his tofu burger folded inside the paper plate, chewing it all like a taco. “Giant hasn’t gotten what he wants yet, so he still needs your dad for leverage. He’ll wait until the deadline passes, see if you show up. He wants you to divert the quest to this mountain, right?”  
  
Piper nodded uncertainly.  
  
“So that means Hera is being kept somewhere else,” Hedge reasoned. “And she has to be saved by the same day. So you have to choose - rescue your dad, or rescue Hera. If you go after Hera, then Enceladus takes care of your dad. Besides, Enceladus would never let you go even if you cooperated. You’re obviously one of the eight in the Great Prophecy.”  
  
“So we have no choice,” she said miserably. “We have to save Hera, or the giant king gets unleashed. That’s our quest. The world depends on it. And Enceladus seems to have ways of watching me. He isn’t stupid. He’ll know if we change course and go the wrong way. He’ll kill my dad.”  
  
“He’s not going to kill your dad,” I said, determined. “We’ll save him.”  
  
“We don’t have time!” Piper cried. “Besides, it’s a trap.”  
  
“We’re your friends, beauty queen,” Leo said. “We’re not going to let your dad die. We just gotta figure out a plan.”  
  
Coach Hedge grumbled. “Would help if we knew where this mountain was. Maybe Aeolus can tell you that. The Bay Area has a bad reputation for demigods. Old home of the Titans, Mount Othrys, sits over Mount Tam, where Atlas holds up the sky. I hope that’s not the mountain you saw.”  
  
Piper tried to remember the vista in her dreams. “I don’t think so. This was inland.”  
  
Jason frowned at the fire, like he was trying to remember something.  
  
“Bad reputation... that doesn’t seem right. The Bay Area...”  
  
“You think you’ve been there?” Piper asked.  
  
“I...” He looked like he was almost on the edge of a breakthrough. Then the anguish came back into his eyes. “I don’t know. Cath, Hedge, what happened to Mount Othrys?”

Hedge took another bite of paper and burger. “Well, Kronos built a new palace there last summer. Big nasty place, was going to be the headquarters for his new kingdom and all. Weren’t any battles there, though. Kronos marched on Manhattan, tried to take Olympus. If I remember right, he left some other Titans in charge of his palace, but after Kronos got defeated in Manhattan, the whole palace just crumbled on its own.”  
  
“No,” Jason said.  
  
Everyone looked at him.  
  
“What do you mean, ‘No’?” Leo asked.  
  
“That’s not what happened. I—” He tensed, looking toward the cave entrance. “Did you hear that?”  
  
For a second, nothing. Then I heard it: howls piercing the night.


	10. Chapter 10

“Wolves,” Piper said. “They sound close.”  
  
Jason rose and summoned his sword. Leo and Coach Hedge got to their feet too. I tried, but black spots danced before my eyes.  
  
“Stay there,” Jason told me and Piper. “We’ll protect you.”  
  
I gritted my teeth. I hated feeling helpless. Stupid hypothermia.  
  
Then, just outside the firelight at the entrance of the cave, I saw a pair of red eyes glowing in dark.  
  
More wolves edged into the firelight - black beasts bigger than Great Danes, with ice and snow caked on their fur. Their fangs gleamed, and their glowing red eyes looked disturbingly intelligent. The wolf in front was almost as tall as a horse, his mouth stained as if he’d just made a fresh kill.  
  
Piper pulled her dagger out of its sheath. I fumbled for my quiver to grab my silver arrows  
  
Then Jason stepped forward and said something in Latin.  
  
I didn’t think a dead language would have much effect on wild animals, but the alpha wolf curled his lip. The fur stood up along his spine. One of his lieutenants tried to advance, but the alpha wolf snapped at his ear. Then all of the wolves backed into the dark.  
  
“Dude, I gotta study Latin.” Leo’s hammer shook in his hand. “What’d you say, Jason?”  
  
Hedge cursed. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. Look.”  
  
The wolves were coming back, but the alpha wolf wasn’t with them. They didn’t attack. They waited - at least a dozen now, in a rough semicircle just outside the firelight, blocking the cave exit.  
  
The coach hefted his club. “Here’s the plan. I’ll kill them all, and you guys escape.”  
  
“Coach, they’ll rip you apart,” Piper said.  
  
“Nah, I’m good.”  
  
Then I saw the silhouette of a man coming through the storm, wading through the wolf pack.  
  
“Stick together,” Jason said. “They respect a pack. And Hedge, no crazy stuff. We’re not leaving you or anyone else behind.”  
  
I got a lump in my throat. We were the weak links in our “pack” right now. No doubt the wolves could smell my fear. I might as well be wearing a sign that said _free lunch._  
  
The wolves parted, and the man stepped into the firelight. His hair was greasy and ragged, the color of fireplace soot, topped with a crown of what looked like finger bones. His robes were tattered fur - wolf, rabbit, raccoon, deer, and several others I couldn’t identify. The furs didn’t look cured, and from the smell, they weren’t very fresh. His frame was lithe and muscular, like a distance runner’s. But the most horrible thing was his face. His thin pale skin was pulled tight over his skull. His teeth were sharpened like fangs. His eyes glowed bright red like his wolves’ - and they fixed on Jason with absolute hatred.  
  
“Ecce,” he said, “filli Romani.”  
  
“Speak English, wolf man!” Hedge bellowed.  
  
The wolf man snarled. “Tell your faun to mind his tongue, son of Rome. Or he’ll be my first snack.”  
  
I remembered that faun was the Roman name for satyr.Not exactly helpful information.

The wolf man studied their little group. His nostrils twitched. “So it’s true,” he mused. “A child of Aphrodite. A son of Hephaestus. A daughter of Apollo. A faun. And a child of Rome, of Lord Jupiter, no less. All together, without killing each other. How interesting.”  
  
“You were told about us?” Jason asked. “By whom?”  
  
The man snarled - perhaps a laugh, perhaps a challenge. “Oh, we’ve been patrolling for you all across the west, demigod, hoping we’d be the first to find you. The giant king will reward me well when he rises. I am Lycaon, king of the wolves. And my pack is hungry.”  
  
The wolves snarled in the darkness.  
  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leo put up his hammer and slip something else from his tool belt - a glass bottle full of clear liquid.  
  
Lycaon glared at Jason’s sword. He moved to each side as if looking for an opening, but Jason’s blade moved with him.  
  
“Leave,” Jason ordered. “There’s no food for you here.”  
  
“Unless you want tofu burgers,” Leo offered.  
  
Lycaon bared his fangs. Apparently he wasn’t a tofu fan.  
  
“If I had my way,” Lycaon said with regret, “I’d kill you first, son of Jupiter. Your father made me what I am. I was the powerful mortal king of Arcadia, with fifty fine sons, and Zeus slew them all with his lightning bolts.”  
  
“Ha,” Coach Hedge said. “For good reason!”  
  
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “Coach, you know this clown?”  
  
“I do,” I answered.

“Lycaon invited Zeus to dinner,” I said. “But the king wasn’t sure it was really Zeus. So to test his powers, Lycaon tried to feed him human flesh. Zeus got outraged-”  
  
“And killed my sons!” Lycaon howled. The wolves behind him howled too.  
  
“So Zeus turned him into a wolf,” Piper added. “They call... they call werewolves lycanthropes, named after him, the first werewolf.”  
  
“The king of wolves,” Coach Hedge finished. “An immortal, smelly, vicious mutt.”  
  
Lycaon growled. “I will tear you apart, faun!”  
  
“Oh, you want some goat, buddy? ’Cause I’ll give you goat.”  
  
“Stop it,” Jason said. “Lycaon, you said you wanted to kill me first, but...?”  
  
“Sadly, Child of Rome, you are spoken for. Since this one” - he waggled his claws at Piper - “has failed to kill you, you are to be delivered alive to the Wolf House. One of my compatriots has asked for the honor of killing you herself.”  
  
“Who?” Jason said.  
  
The wolf king snickered. “Oh, a great admirer of yours. Apparently, you made quite an impression on her. She will take care of you soon enough, and really I cannot complain. Spilling your blood at the Wolf House should mark my new territory quite well. Lupa will think twice about challenging my pack.”  
  
Piper struggled to her feet. With the attention of the wolves off of me, I finally managed to discreetly nock an arrow.  
  
“You’re going to leave now,” Piper said, “before we destroy you.”  
  
She was too weak. Shivering in her blankets, pale and sweaty and barely able to hold a knife, she didn't look very threatening.  
  
Lycaon’s red eyes crinkled with humor. “A brave try, girl. I admire that. Perhaps I’ll make your end quick. Only the son of Jupiter is needed alive. The rest of you, I’m afraid, are dinner.”  
  
Jason took a step forward. “You’re not killing anyone, wolf man. Not without going through me.”  
  
Lycaon howled and extended his claws. Jason slashed at him, but his golden sword passed straight through as if the wolf king wasn’t there.  
  
Lycaon laughed. “Gold, bronze, steel - none of these are any good against my wolves, son of Jupiter.”  
  
“Silver!” Piper cried. “Aren’t werewolves hurt by silver?”  
  
“We don’t have any silver!” Jason said.

"I do." I mustered all my strength and pulled my drawstring back. Before I managed to shoot, though, wolves leaped into the firelight. Hedge charged forward with an elated “Woot!”  
  
But Leo struck first. He threw his glass bottle and it shattered on the ground, splattering liquid all over the wolves - the unmistakable smell of gasoline. He shot a burst of fire at the puddle, and a wall of flames erupted.  
  
Wolves yelped and retreated. Several caught fire and had to run back into the snow. Even Lycaon looked uneasily at the barrier of flames now separating his wolves from the demigods.  
  
“Aw, c’mon,” Coach Hedge complained. “I can’t hit them if they’re way over there.”  
  
Every time a wolf came closer, Leo shot a new wave of fire from his hands, but each effort seemed to make him a little more tired, and the gasoline was already dying down. “I can’t summon any more gas!” Leo warned. Then his face turned red. “Wow, that came out wrong. I mean the burning kind. Gonna take the tool belt a while to recharge. What you got, man?”  
  
“Nothing,” Jason said. "Not even a weapon that works.”  
  
“Lightning?” Piper asked.  
  
Jason concentrated, but nothing happened. “I think the snowstorm is interfering, or something.”  
  
“Unleash the venti!” Piper said.  
  
“Then we’ll have nothing to give Aeolus,” Jason said. “We’ll have come all this way for nothing.”  
  
Lycaon laughed. “I can smell your fear. A few more minutes of life, heroes. Pray to whatever gods you wish. Zeus did not grant me mercy, and you will have none from me.”

I released my arrow and hit one of the larger wolves in the eye. It melted into a puddle of shadows, but I nearly fainted at the effort.  
  
The flames began to sputter out. Jason cursed and dropped his sword. He crouched like he was ready to go hand-to-hand. Leo pulled his hammer out of his pack. Piper raised her dagger - not much, but it was all she had. Coach Hedge hefted his club, and he was the only one who looked excited about dying.  
  
Then a ripping sound cut through the wind - like a piece of tearing cardboard. A long stick sprouted from the neck of the nearest wolf - the shaft of a silver arrow. The wolf writhed and fell, melting into a puddle of shadow.  
  
More arrows. More wolves fell. The pack broke in confusion. An arrow flashed toward Lycaon, but the wolf king caught it in midair. Then he yelled in pain. When he dropped the arrow, it left a charred, smoking gash across his palm. Another arrow caught him in the shoulder, and the wolf king staggered.  
  
“Curse them!” Lycaon yelled. He growled at his pack, and the wolves turned and ran. Lycaon fixed Jason with those glowing red eyes. “This isn’t over, boy.”

The wolf king disappeared into the night.  
  
Seconds later, I heard more wolves baying, but the sound was different - less threatening, more like hunting dogs on the scent. A smaller white wolf burst into the cave, followed by two more.  
  
Hedge said, “Kill it?”  
  
“No!” I said. “They're friendly.”  
  
The wolves tilted their heads and studied the campers with huge golden eyes. One of them -  I recognized it to be Phoebe's, the one I'd healed after the war - came over to nuzzle me in greeting, and I scratched behind it's ear.  
  
A heartbeat later, their masters appeared: a troop of hunters in white-and-gray winter camouflage, at least half a dozen. All of them carried bows, with quivers of glowing silver arrows on their backs.  
  
Their faces were covered with parka hoods, but clearly they were all girls. One, a little taller than the rest, crouched in the firelight and snatched up the arrow that had wounded Lycaon’s hand.  
  
“So close.” She turned to her companions. “Phoebe, stay with me. Watch the entrance. The rest of you, follow Lycaon. We can’t lose him now. I’ll catch up with you.”  
  
The other hunters mumbled agreement and disappeared, heading after Lycaon’s pack.  
  
The girl in white turned toward them, her face still hidden in her parka hood. “We’ve been following that demon’s trail for over a week. Is everyone all right? No one got bit?”  
  
Jason stood frozen, staring at the girl.  
  
“You’re her,” Piper guessed. “You’re Thalia.”  
  
The girl tensed. She pulled down her parka hood. Her hair was spiky black, with a silver tiara across her brow. Her face had a super-healthy glow to it, as if she were a little more than human, and her eyes were brilliant blue.

“Do I know you?” Thalia asked.

"Yes." I struggled to my feet. I might be holding a grudge at Percy and Annabeth for the war, but I couldn't stay mad at Thalia for long. Phoebe came over to support me, glaring at the boys.  
  
Piper took a breath. “This might be a shock, but-”  
  
“Thalia.” Jason stepped forward, his voice trembling. “I’m Jason, your brother.”

I frowned - this information was new to me. I didn't even know he had a brother.  
  
For a minute, Jason and Thalia faced each other, stunned. Then Thalia rushed forward and hugged him.  
  
“My gods! She told me you were dead!” She gripped Jason’s face and seemed to be examining everything about it. “Thank Artemis, it is you. That little scar on your lip - you tried to eat a stapler when you were two!”  
  
Leo laughed. “Seriously?”  
  
Hedge nodded like he approved of Jason’s taste. “Staplers - excellent source of iron.”  
  
“W-wait,” Jason stammered. “Who told you I was dead? What happened?”  
  
At the cave entrance, one of the white wolves barked. Thalia looked back at the wolf and nodded, but she kept her hands on Jason’s face, like she was afraid he might vanish. “My wolf is telling me I don’t have much time, and she’s right. But we have to talk. Let’s sit.”  
  
Piper did better than that. She collapsed. She would’ve cracked her head on the cave floor if Hedge hadn’t caught her.  
  
Thalia rushed over. “What’s wrong with her? Ah - never mind. I see. Hypothermia. Ankle.” She frowned at the satyr. “Don’t you know nature healing?”  
  
Hedge scoffed. “Why do you think she looks this good? Can’t you smell the Gatorade?”  
  
Thalia looked at Leo for the first time, and of course it was an accusatory glare, like _Why did you let the goat be a doctor?_ As if that was Leo’s fault.  
  
“You and the satyr,” Thalia ordered, “take the girls to my friend at the entrance. Phoebe’s an excellent healer.”  
  
“It’s cold out there!” Hedge said. “I’ll freeze my horns off.”  
  
“Come on, Hedge. These two need time to talk.”  
  
“Humph. Fine,” the satyr muttered. “Didn’t even get to brain anybody.”  
  
Hedge carried Piper toward the entrance. Phoebe put her arm around my waist and started to to lead me outside. Leo was about to follow when Jason called, “Actually, man, could you, um, stick around?”  
  
“Sticking around is my specialty.”  
  
"Boys," Phoebe muttered under her breath. I grinned softly, but it quickly turned into a grimace. She quickly set up a tent outside and we went in. As Phoebe got to healing Piper first, I started up some hot chocolate.

I knew my way around the tents. I'd gone to help on some hunts, honorarily. I fit right in with them, and Artemis was very kind to me. She'd once told me they'd always have a spot for me if I decided to join.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted to join. But I knew that would mean leaving Will, and hurting Nico terribly.

I handed out the hot chocolate just as Phoebe finished up on Piper. She turned to me and started her magic - literally, being a child of Hecate. I instantly started to feel better.

"So, you still undecided on joining? You know you don't have to stay mortal for your brother. He'd understand." I felt Piper's gaze on me, but I shrugged. "I know Will would understand, but that doesn't mean he'd like it. And you remember what happened to Bianca - I don't want to hurt Nico."

"Wait, who's Nico? Is he your boyfriend?" I shook my head at Piper's question. "No, he's a son of Hades and my closest friend. Haven't seen him in a while though. Bianca was his sister, but she died shortly after joining the Hunt. It's still a touchy subject for him, and I don't want him to feel like he'll lose me too."

"Well, here's the brochure again, just in case you change your mind." Just after she finished speaking, we hear the others coming back.

“Oh, no way,” Leo said. “We’ve been sitting in a cave and you get the luxury tent? Somebody give me hypothermia. I want hot chocolate and a parka!”  
  
Phoebe sniffed. “Boys,” she said, like it was the worst insult she could think of.  
  
“It’s all right, Phoebe,” Thalia said. “They’ll need extra coats. And I think we can spare some chocolate.”  
  
Phoebe grumbled, but soon Leo and Jason were also dressed in silvery winter clothes that were incredibly lightweight and warm. The hot chocolate was first-rate, if I do say so myself.  
  
“Cheers!” said Coach Hedge. He crunched down his plastic thermos cup.  
  
“That cannot be good for your intestines,” Leo said.  
  
Thalia patted Piper on the back. “You guys up for moving?”  
  
Piper nodded. “Thanks to Phoebe, yeah. You guys are really good at this wilderness survival thing. I feel like I could run ten miles.”  
  
Thalia winked at Jason. “She’s tough for a child of Aphrodite. I like this one.”  
  
“Hey, I could run ten miles too,” Leo volunteered. “Tough Hephaestus kid here. Let’s hit it.”  
  
Naturally, Thalia ignored him.  
  
It took Phoebe exactly six seconds to break camp. The tent self-collapsed into a square the size of a pack of chewing gum.  
  
Thalia ran uphill through the snow, hugging a tiny little path on the side of the mountain, and the Hunters left Leo in the dust.  
  
Coach Hedge leaped around like a happy mountain goat, coaxing them on. “Come on, Valdez! Pick up the pace! Let’s chant. I’ve got a girl in Kalamazoo-”  
  
“Let’s not,” I snapped.  
  
So we ran in silence.  
  
Leo fell in next to Jason at the back of the group, and I followed. “How you doing, man?”  
  
Jason’s expression was enough of an answer: _Not good._  
  
“Thalia takes it so calmly,” Jason said. “Like it’s no big deal that I appeared. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but... she’s not like me. She seems so much more together.”  
  
“Hey, she’s not fighting amnesia,” Leo said. “Plus, she’s had more time to get used to this whole demigod thing. You fight monsters and talk to gods for a while, you probably get used to surprises.”  
  
“Maybe,” Jason said. “I just wish I understood what happened when I was two, why my mom got rid of me. Thalia ran away because of me.”  
  
“Hey, whatever’s happened, it wasn’t your fault. And your sister is pretty cool. She’s a lot like you.”  
  
Jason took that in silence.

When we stopped, I slung my arm around Phoebe.  
  
Leo slammed into Thalia and nearly sent them both down the side of the mountain the hard way. Fortunately, the Hunter was light on her feet. She steadied them both, then pointed up.  
  
“That,” Leo choked, “is a really large rock.”  
  
We stood near the summit of Pikes Peak. Below us the world was blanketed in clouds. The air was so thin, I could hardly breathe. Night had set in, but a full moon shone and the stars were incredible. Stretching out to the north and south, peaks of other mountains rose from the clouds like islands—or teeth.  
  
But the real show was above us. Hovering in the sky, about a quarter mile away, was a massive free-floating island of glowing purple stone. It was hard to judge its size, but I figured it was at least as wide as a football stadium and just as tall. The sides were rugged cliffs, riddled with caves, and every once in a while a gust of wind burst out with a sound like a pipe organ blast. At the top of the rock, brass walls ringed some kind of a fortress.  
  
The only thing connecting Pikes Peak to the floating island was a narrow bridge of ice that glistened in the moonlight.  
  
Then I realized the bridge wasn’t exactly ice, because it wasn’t solid. As the winds changed direction, the bridge snaked around - blurring and thinning, in some places even breaking into a dotted line like the vapor trail of a plane.

“We’re not seriously crossing that,” Leo said.  
  
Thalia shrugged. “I’m not a big fan of heights, I’ll admit. But if you want to get to Aeolus’s fortress, this is the only way.”  
  
“Is the fortress always hanging there?” Piper asked. “How can people not notice it sitting on top of Pikes Peak?”  
  
“The Mist,” Thalia said. “Still, mortals do notice it indirectly. Some days, Pikes Peak looks purple. People say it’s a trick of the light, but actually it’s the color of Aeolus’s palace, reflecting off the mountain face.”  
  
“It’s enormous,” Jason said.  
  
Thalia laughed. “You should see Olympus, little brother.” I tensed - I hadn't been there since Luke.  
  
“You’re serious? You’ve been there?”  
  
Thalia grimaced. “We should go across in two different groups. The bridge is fragile.”  
  
“That’s reassuring,” Leo said. “Jason, can’t you just fly us up there?”  
  
Thalia laughed. Then she seemed to realize Leo’s question wasn’t a joke. “Wait... Jason, you can fly?”  
  
Jason gazed up at the floating fortress. “Well, sort of. More like I can control the winds. But the winds up here are so strong, I’m not sure I’d want to try. Thalia, you mean... you can’t fly?”  
  
For a second, Thalia looked genuinely afraid. Then she got her expression under control.

“Truthfully,” she said, “I’ve never tried. Might be better if we stuck to the bridge.”  
  
Coach Hedge tapped the ice vapor trail with his hoof, then jumped onto the bridge. Amazingly, it held his weight. “Easy! I’ll go first. Piper, Cath, come on, girls. I’ll give you a hand.”  
  
“No, that’s okay,” Piper started to say, but the coach grabbed our hands and dragged us up the bridge.  
  
When we had reached the end, I looked back to Jason and Leo, who was in the process of melting the bridge.  
  
When they reached the floating island, Piper, Coach Hedge and I pulled them aboard just as the last of the vapor bridge vanished. They stood gasping for breath at the base of a stone stairway chiseled into the side of the cliff, leading up to the fortress.  
  
Leo looked back down. The top of Pikes Peak floated below them in a sea of clouds, but there was no sign of Thalia. And Leo had just burned their only exit.  
  
“What happened?” Piper demanded. “Leo, why are your clothes smoking?”  
  
“I got a little heated,” he gasped. “Sorry, Jason. Honest. I didn’t-”  
  
“It’s all right,” Jason said, but his expression was grim. “We’ve got less than twenty-four hours to rescue a goddess and Piper’s dad. Let’s go see the king of the winds.”  
  
We climbed in silence. I glanced back at Jason a few times, worried. He wouldn't meet my eyes.  
  
Finally we arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though I couldn’t imagine who would possibly attack this place. Twenty-foot-high gates opened for them, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel - a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington, D.C. - except for the cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof.

 

“That’s bizarre,” Piper said.  
  
“Guess you can’t get cable on a floating island,” Leo said. “Dang, check this guy’s front yard.”  
  
The rotunda sat in the center of a quarter-mile circle. The grounds were amazing in a scary way. They were divided into four sections like big pizza slices, each one representing a season.  
  
The section on their right was an icy waste, with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so I wasn’t sure if they were decorations or alive.  
  
To their left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. Mounds of leaves blew into patterns - gods, people, animals that ran after each other before scattering back into leaves.  
  
In the distance, Jason could see two more areas behind the rotunda. One looked like a green pasture with sheep made out of clouds. The last section was a desert where tumbleweeds scratched strange patterns in the sand like Greek letters, smiley faces, and a huge advertisement that read: _watch Aeolus nightly!_  
  
“One section for each of the four wind gods,” Jason guessed. “Four cardinal directions.”  
  
“I’m loving that pasture.” Coach Hedge licked his lips. “You guys mind-”  
  
“Go ahead,” Jason said. I was actually relieved he sent the satyr off. It would be hard enough getting on Aeolus’s good side without Coach Hedge waving his club and screaming, “Die!”  
  
While the satyr ran off to attack springtime, the four of us walked down the road to the steps of the palace. we passed through the front doors into a white marble foyer decorated with purple banners that read _olympian weather channel_ , and some that just read _OW!_  
  
“Hello!” A woman floated up to us. Literally floated. She was pretty in that elfish way I associated with nature spirits at Camp Half-Blood - petite, slightly pointy ears, and an ageless face that could’ve been sixteen or thirty. Her brown eyes twinkled cheerfully. Even though there was no wind, her dark hair blew in slow motion, shampoo-commercial style. Her white gown billowed around her like parachute material. I couldn’t tell if she had feet, but if so, they didn’t touch the floor. She had a white tablet computer in her hand. “Are you from Lord Zeus?” she asked. “We’ve been expecting you.”  
  
“Are you a ghost?” Jason asked.  
  
Right away I knew he’d insulted her. The smile turned into a pout. “I’m an aura, sir. A wind nymph, as you might expect, working for the lord of the winds. My name is Mellie. We don’t have ghosts.”  
  
Piper came to the rescue. “No, of course you don’t! My friend simply mistook you for Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal of all time. It’s an easy mistake.”  
  
Wow, she was good. The compliment seemed a little over the top, but Mellie the aura blushed. “Oh... well, then. So you are from Zeus?”  
  
“Er,” Jason said, “I’m the son of Zeus, yeah.”  
  
“Excellent! Please, right this way.” She led us through some security doors into another lobby, consulting her tablet as she floated. She didn’t look where she was going, but apparently it didn’t matter as she drifted straight through a marble column with no problem. “We’re out of prime time now, so that’s good,” she mused. “I can fit you in right before his 11:12 spot.”  
  
“Um, okay,” Jason said.  
  
The lobby was a pretty distracting place. Winds blasted around us, so it felt like I was pushing through an invisible crowd. Doors blew open and slammed by themselves.  
  
The things I could see were just as bizarre. Paper airplanes of all different sizes and shapes sped around, and other wind nymphs, aurai, would occasionally pluck them out of the air, unfold and read them, then toss them back into the air, where the planes would refold themselves and keep flying.

A harpy passed by us, and Jason's eyes nearly bulged out. I had to stop myself from laughing.  
  
“Not an aura?” Jason asked Mellie as the creature wobbled by.  
  
Mellie laughed. “That’s a harpy, of course. Our, ah, ugly stepsisters, I suppose you would say. Don’t you have harpies on Olympus? They’re spirits of violent gusts, unlike us aurai. We’re all gentle breezes.”  
  
She batted her eyes at Jason.  
  
“’Course you are,” he said.  
  
“So,” Piper prompted, “you were taking us to see Aeolus?”  
  
Mellie led them through a set of doors like an airlock. Above the interior door, a green light blinked.  
  
“We have a few minutes before he starts,” Mellie said cheerfully. “He probably won’t kill you if we go in now. Come along!”  
  



	11. Chapter 11

**JASON**

My jaw dropped. The central station of Aeolus’s fortress was as big as a cathedral, with a soaring domed roof covered in silver. Television equipment floated randomly through the air - cameras, spotlights, set pieces, potted plants. And there was no floor. Leo almost fell into the chasm before I pulled him back.  
  
“Holy-!” Leo gulped. “Hey, Mellie. A little warning next time!”  
  
An enormous circular pit plunged into the heart of the mountain. It was probably half a mile deep, honeycombed with caves. Some of the tunnels probably led straight outside. I remembered seeing winds blast out of them when we’d been on Pikes Peak. Other caves were sealed with some glistening material like glass or wax. The whole cavern bustled with harpies, aurai, and paper airplanes, but for someone who couldn’t fly, it would be a very long, very fatal fall.  
  
“Oh, my,” Mellie gasped. “I’m so sorry.” She unclipped a walkie-talkie from somewhere inside her robes and spoke into it: “Hello, sets? Is that Nuggets? Hi, Nuggets. Could we get a floor in the main studio, please? Yes, a solid one. Thanks.”  
  
A few seconds later, an army of harpies rose from the pit - three dozen or so demon chicken ladies, all carrying squares of various building material. They went to work hammering and gluing - and using large quantities of duct tape, which didn’t reassure me. In no time there was a makeshift floor snaking out over the chasm. It was made of plywood, marble blocks, carpet squares, wedges of grass sod - just about anything.  
  
“That can’t be safe,” I said.  
  
“Oh, it is!” Mellie assured him. “The harpies are very good.”  
  
Easy for her to say. She just drifted across without touching the floor, but I decided I had the best chance at surviving, since I could fly, so I stepped out first. Amazingly, the floor held.  
  
Piper gripped my hand and followed me. “If I fall, you’re catching me.”  
  
“Uh, sure.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing.  
  
Leo stepped out next. “You’re catching me, too, Superman. But I ain’t holding your hand.” Cath rolled her eyes at all of us and followed Mellie.  
  
Mellie led us toward the middle of the chamber, where a loose sphere of flat-panel video screens floated around a kind of control center. A man hovered inside, checking monitors and reading paper airplane messages.  
  
The man paid us no attention as Mellie brought us forward. She pushed a forty-two-inch Sony out of our way and led us into the control area.  
  
Leo whistled. “I got to get a room like this.”  
  
The floating screens showed all sorts of television programs. Some I recognized - news broadcasts, mostly - but some programs looked a little strange: gladiators fighting, demigods battling monsters. Maybe they were movies, but they looked more like reality shows.  
  
At the far end of the sphere was a silky blue backdrop like a cinema screen, with cameras and studio lights floating around it.  
  
The man in the center was talking into an earpiece phone. He had a remote control in each hand and was pointing them at various screens, seemingly at random.  
  
He wore a business suit that looked like the sky—blue mostly, but dappled with clouds that changed and darkened and moved across the fabric. He looked like he was in his sixties, with a shock of white hair, but he had a ton of stage makeup on, and that smooth plastic-surgery look to his face, so he appeared not really young, not really old, just wrong—like a Ken doll someone had halfway melted in a microwave. His eyes darted back and forth from screen to screen, like he was trying to absorb everything at once. He muttered things into his phone, and his mouth kept twitching. He was either amused, or crazy, or both.  
  
Mellie floated toward him. “Ah, sir, Mr. Aeolus, these demigods-”  
  
“Hold it!” He held up a hand to silence her, then pointed at one of the screens. “Watch!”  
  
It was one of those storm-chaser programs, where insane thrill-seekers drive after tornados. As I watched, a Jeep plowed straight into a funnel cloud and got tossed into the sky.  
  
Aeolus shrieked with delight. “The Disaster Channel. People do that on purpose!” He turned toward me with a mad grin. “Isn’t that amazing? Let’s watch it again.”  
  
“Um, sir,” Mellie said, “this is Jason, son of-”  
  
“Yes, yes, I remember,” Aeolus said. “You’re back. How did it go?”  
  
I hesitated. “Sorry? I think you’ve mistaken me-”  
  
“No, no, Jason Grace, aren’t you? It was - what - last year? You were on your way to fight a sea monster, I believe.”  
  
“I- I don’t remember.”  
  
Aeolus laughed. “Must not have been a very good sea monster! No, I remember every hero who’s ever come to me for aid. Odysseus - gods, he docked at my island for a month! At least you only stayed a few days. Now, watch this video. These ducks get sucked straight into-”  
  
“Sir,” Mellie interrupted. “Two minutes to air.”  
  
“Air!” Aeolus exclaimed. “I love air. How do I look? Makeup!”  
  
Immediately a small tornado of brushes, blotters, and cotton balls descended on Aeolus. They blurred across his face in a cloud of flesh-tone smoke until his coloration was even more gruesome than before. Wind swirled through his hair and left it sticking up like a frosted Christmas tree.  
  
“Mr. Aeolus.” I slipped off the golden backpack. “We brought you these rogue storm spirits.”  
  
“Did you!” Aeolus looked at the bag like it was a gift from a fan - something he really didn’t want. “Well, how nice.”  
  
Leo nudged me, and I offered the bag. “Boreas sent us to capture them for you. We hope you’ll accept them and stop - you know - ordering demigods to be killed.”  
  
Aeolus laughed, and looked incredulously at Mellie. “Demigods be killed - did I order that?”  
  
Mellie checked her computer tablet. “Yes, sir, fifteenth of September. ‘Storm spirits released by the death of Typhon, demigods to be held responsible,’ etc... yes, a general order for them all to be killed.”

“Oh, pish,” Aeolus said. “I was just grumpy. Rescind that order, Mellie, and um, who’s on guard duty - Teriyaki? - Teri, take these storm spirits down to cell block Fourteen E, will you?”  
  
A harpy swooped out of nowhere, snatched the golden bag, and spiraled into the abyss.  
  
Aeolus grinned at me. “Now, sorry about that kill-on-sight business. But gods, I really was mad, wasn’t I?” His face suddenly darkened, and his suit did the same, the lapels flashing with lightning. “You know... I remember now. Almost seemed like a voice was telling me to give that order. A little cold tingle on the back of my neck.”  
  
I tensed. A cold tingle on the back of his neck... Why did that sound so familiar? “A... um, voice in your head, sir?”  
  
“Yes. How odd. Mellie, should we kill them?”  
  
“No, sir,” she said patiently. “They just brought us the storm spirits, which makes everything all right.”  
  
“Of course.” Aeolus laughed. “Sorry. Mellie, let’s send the demigods something nice. A box of chocolates, perhaps.”  
  
“A box of chocolates to every demigod in the world, sir?”  
  
“No, too expensive. Never mind. Wait, it’s time! I’m on!”  
  
Aeolus flew off toward the blue screen as newscast music started to play.  
  
I looked at the others, who seemed just as confused as I was.  
  
“Mellie,” I said, “is he... always like that?”  
  
She smiled sheepishly. “Well, you know what they say. If you don’t like his mood, wait five minutes. That expression ‘whichever way the wind blows’ - that was based on him.”  
  
“And that thing about the sea monster,” Jason said. “Was I here before?”  
  
Mellie blushed. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I’m Mr. Aeolus’s new assistant. I’ve been with him longer than most, but still - not that long.”  
  
“How long do his assistants usually last?” Piper asked.   
  
"Oh...” Mellie thought for a moment. “I’ve been doing this for... twelve hours?”  
  
A voice blared from floating speakers: “And now, weather every twelve minutes! Here’s your forecaster for Olympian Weather - the OW! channel - Aeolus!”  
  
Lights blazed on Aeolus, who was now standing in front of the blue screen. His smile was unnaturally white, and he looked like he’d had so much caffeine his face was about to explode.  
  
“Hello, Olympus! Aeolus, master of the winds here, with weather every twelve! We’ll have a low-pressure system moving over Florida today, so expect milder temperatures since Demeter wishes to spare the citrus farmers!” He gestured at the blue screen, but when I checked the monitors, I saw that a digital image was being projected behind Aeolus, so it looked like he was standing in front of a U.S. map with animated smiley suns and frowny storm clouds. “Along the eastern seaboard- oh, hold on.” He tapped his earpiece. “Sorry, folks! Poseidon is angry with Miami today, so it looks like that Florida freeze is back on! Sorry, Demeter. Over in the Midwest, I’m not sure what St. Louis did to offend Zeus, but you can expect winter storms! Boreas himself is being called down to punish the area with ice. Bad news, Missouri! No, wait. Hephaestus feels sorry for central Missouri, so you all will have much more moderate temperatures and sunny skies.”  
  
Aeolus kept going like that - forecasting each area of the country and changing his prediction two or three times as he got messages over his earpiece - the gods apparently putting in orders for various winds and weather.  
  
“This can’t be right,” I whispered. “Weather isn’t this random.”  
  
Mellie smirked. “And how often are the mortal weathermen right? They talk about fronts and air pressure and moisture, but the weather surprises them all the time. At least Aeolus tells us why it’s so unpredictable. Very hard job, trying to appease all the gods at once. It’s enough to drive anyone...”  
  
She trailed off, but I knew what she meant. Mad. Aeolus was completely mad.  
  
“And that’s the weather,” Aeolus concluded. “See you in twelve minutes, because I’m sure it’ll change!”  
  
The lights shut off, the video monitors went back to random coverage, and just for a moment, Aeolus’s face sagged with weariness. Then he seemed to remember he had guests, and he put a smile back on.  
  
“So, you brought me some rogue storm spirits,” Aeolus said. “I suppose... thanks! And did you want something else? I assume so. Demigods always do.”  
  
Mellie said, “Um, sir, this is Zeus’s son.”  
  
“Yes, yes. I know that. I said I remembered him from before.”  
  
“But, sir, they’re here from Olympus.”  
  
Aeolus looked stunned. Then he laughed so abruptly, I almost jumped into the chasm. “You mean you’re here on behalf of your father this time? Finally! I knew they would send someone to renegotiate my contract!”  
  
“Um, what?” I asked.  
  
“Oh, thank goodness!” Aeolus sighed with relief. “It’s been what, three thousand years since Zeus made me master of the winds. Not that I’m ungrateful, of course! But really, my contract is so vague. Obviously I’m immortal, but ‘master of the winds.’ What does that mean? Am I a nature spirit? A demigod? A god? I want to be god of the winds, because the benefits are so much better. Can we start with that?”  
  
I looked at my friends, mystified.  
  
“Dude,” Leo said, “you think we’re here to promote you?”  
  
“You are, then?” Aeolus grinned. His business suit turned completely blue - not a cloud in the fabric. “Marvelous! I mean, I think I’ve shown quite a bit of initiative with the weather channel, eh? And of course I’m in the press all the time. So many books have been written about me: Into Thin Air, Up in the Air, Gone with the Wind-”  
  
“Er, I don’t think those are about you,” I said, before I noticed Mellie shaking her head.  
  
“Nonsense,” Aeolus said. “Mellie, they’re biographies of me, aren’t they?”  
  
“Absolutely, sir,” she squeaked.  
  
“There, you see? I don’t read. Who has time? But obviously the mortals love me. So, we’ll change my official title to god of the winds. Then, about salary and staff-”  
  
“Sir,” I said, “we’re not from Olympus.”  
  
Aeolus blinked. “But—”  
  
“I’m the son of Zeus, yes,” I said, “but we’re not here to negotiate your contract. We’re on a quest and we need your help.”  
  
Aeolus’s expression hardened. “Like last time? Like every hero who comes here? Demigods! It’s always about you, isn’t it?”  
  
“Sir, please, I don’t remember last time, but if you helped me once before-”  
  
“I’m always helping! Well, sometimes I’m destroying, but mostly I’m helping, and sometimes I’m asked to do both at the same time! Why, Aeneas, the first of your kind-”  
  
“My kind?” I asked. “You mean, demigods?”  
  
“Oh, please!” Aeolus said. “I mean your line of demigods. You know, Aeneas, son of Venus - the only surviving hero of Troy. When the Greeks burned down his city, he escaped to Italy, where he founded the kingdom that would eventually become Rome, blah, blah, blah. That’s what I meant.”  
  
“I don’t get it,” I admitted.  
  
Aeolus rolled his eyes. “The point being, I was thrown in the middle of that conflict, too! Juno calls up: ‘Oh, Aeolus, destroy Aeneas’s ships for me. I don’t like him.’ Then Neptune says, ‘No, you don’t! That’s my territory. Calm the winds.’ Then Juno is like, ‘No, wreck his ships, or I’ll tell Jupiter you’re uncooperative!’ Do you think it’s easy juggling requests like that?”  
  
“No,” I said. “I guess not.”  
  
“And don’t get me started on Amelia Earhart! I’m still getting angry calls from Olympus about knocking her out of the sky!”  
  
“We just want information,” Piper said in her most calming voice. “We hear you know everything.”  
  
Aeolus straightened his lapels and looked slightly mollified. “Well... that’s true, of course. For instance, I know that this business here” - he waggled his fingers at the four of us - “this harebrained scheme of Juno’s to bring you all together is likely to end in bloodshed. As for you, Piper McLean, I know your father is in serious trouble.” He held out his hand, and a scrap of paper fluttered into his grasp. It was a photo of Piper with a guy who must’ve been her dad. His face did look familiar. I was pretty sure he’d seen him in some movies.  
  
Piper took the photo. Her hands were shaking. “This- this is from his wallet.”  
  
“Yes,” Aeolus said. “All things lost in the wind eventually come to me. The photo blew away when the Earthborn captured him.”  
  
“The what?” Piper asked.  
  
Aeolus waved aside the question and narrowed his eyes at Leo. “Now, you, son of Hephaestus... yes, I see your future.” Another paper fell into the wind god’s hands - an old tattered drawing done in crayons.  
  
Leo took it as if it might be coated in poison. He staggered backward.  
  
“Leo?” Jason said. “What is it?”  
  
“Something I- I drew when I was a kid.” He folded it quickly and put it in his coat. “It’s... yeah, it’s nothing.”  
  
Aeolus laughed. “Really? Just the key to your success! And you, daughter of Apollo... Yes, it would do you good to keep your promises, wouldn't it?"

He caught a scroll out of the air and handed it to her. When she unrolled it, she paled and her hands started shaking, but she put it in her pocket nonetheless.

"Now, where were we? Ah, yes, you wanted information. Are you sure about that? Sometimes information can be dangerous.”  
  
He smiled at me like he was issuing a challenge. Behind him, Mellie shook her head in warning.  
  
“Yeah,” I said. “We need to find the lair of Enceladus.”  
  
Aeolus’s smile melted. “The giant? Why would you want to go there? He’s horrible! He doesn’t even watch my program!”  
  
Piper held up the photo. “Aeolus, he’s got my father. We need to rescue him and find out where Hera is being held captive.”  
  
“Now, that’s impossible,” Aeolus said. “Even I can’t see that, and believe me, I’ve tried. There’s a veil of magic over Hera’s location - very strong, impossible to locate.”  
  
“She’s at a place called the Wolf House,” I said.  
  
“Hold on!” Aeolus put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. “I’m getting something! Yes, she’s at a place called the Wolf House! Sadly, I don’t know where that is.”  
  
“Enceladus does,” Piper persisted. “If you help us find him, we could get the location of the goddess-”  
  
“Yeah,” Leo said, catching on. “And if we save her, she’d be really grateful to you-”  
  
“And Zeus might promote you,” Cath finished.  
  
Aeolus’s eyebrows crept up. “A promotion - and all you want from me is the giant’s location?”

“Well, if you could get us there, too,” Jason amended, “that would be great.”  
  
Mellie clapped her hands in excitement. “Oh, he could do that! He often sends helpful winds-”  
  
“Mellie, quiet!” Aeolus snapped. “I have half a mind to fire you for letting these people in under false pretenses.”  
  
Her face paled. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”  
  
“It wasn’t her fault,” I said. “But about that help...”  
  
Aeolus tilted his head as if thinking. Then I realized the wind lord was listening to voices in his earpiece.  
  
“Well... Zeus approves,” Aeolus muttered. “He says... he says it would be better if you could avoid saving her until after the weekend, because he has a big party planned - Ow! That’s Aphrodite yelling at him, reminding him that the solstice starts at dawn. She says I should help you. And Hephaestus... yes. Hmm. Very rare they agree on anything. Apollo also approves, he says to tell you good luck. There's Athena, hold on...”  
  
I smiled at my friends. Finally, we were having some good luck. Our godly parents were standing up for them.  
  
Back toward the entrance, I heard a loud belch. Coach Hedge waddled in from the lobby, grass all over his face. Mellie saw him coming across the makeshift floor and caught her breath. “Who is that?”  
  
I stifled a cough. “That? That’s just Coach Hedge. Uh, Gleeson Hedge. He’s our...” Jason wasn’t sure what to call him: teacher, friend, problem?  
  
“Our guide," Cath stepped in.  
  
“He’s so goatly,” Mellie murmured.  
  
Behind her, Piper poofed out her cheeks, pretending to vomit.  
  
“What’s up, guys?” Hedge trotted over. “Wow, nice place. Oh! Sod squares.”  
  
“Coach, you just ate,” I said. “And we’re using the sod as a floor. This is, ah, Mellie-”  
  
“An aura.” Hedge smiled winningly. “Beautiful as a summer breeze.”  
  
Mellie blushed.  
  
“And Aeolus here was just about to help us,” I said.  
  
“Yes,” the wind lord muttered. “It seems so. You’ll find Enceladus on Mount Diablo.”  
  
“Devil Mountain?” Leo asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”  
  
“I remember that place!” Piper said. “I went there once with my dad. It’s just east of San Francisco Bay.”  
  
“The Bay Area again?” The coach shook his head. “Not good. Not good at all.”  
  
“Now...” Aeolus began to smile. “As to getting you there-”  
  
Suddenly his face went slack. He bent over and tapped his earpiece as if it were malfunctioning. When he straightened again, his eyes were wild. Despite the makeup, he looked like an old man - an old, very frightened man. “She hasn’t spoke to me for centuries. I can’t- yes, yes I understand.”  
  
He swallowed, regarding me as if I had suddenly turned into a giant cockroach. “I’m sorry, son of Jupiter. New orders. You all have to die.”  
  
Mellie squeaked. “But- but, sir! Zeus said to help them. Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Apollo-”  
  
“Mellie!” Aeolus snapped. “Your job is already on the line. Besides, there are some orders that transcend even the wishes of the gods, especially when it comes to the forces of nature.”  
  
“Whose orders?” I said. “Zeus will fire you if you don’t help us!”  
  
“I doubt it.” Aeolus flicked his wrist, and far below us, a cell door opened in the pit. I could hear storm spirits screaming out of it, spiraling up toward us, howling for blood.  
  
“Even Zeus understands the order of things,” Aeolus said. “And if she is waking - by all the gods - she cannot be denied. Good-bye, heroes. I’m terribly sorry, but I’ll have to make this quick. I’m back on the air in four minutes.”  
  
I summoned my sword. Coach Hedge pulled out his club. Mellie the aura yelled, “No!”  
  
She dived at our feet just as the storm spirits hit with hurricane force, blasting the floor to pieces, shredding the carpet samples and marble and linoleum into what should’ve been lethal projectiles, had Mellie’s robes not spread out like a shield and absorbed the brunt of the impact. The six of us fell into the pit, and Aeolus screamed above them, “Mellie, you are so fired!”  
  
“Quick,” Mellie yelled. “Son of Zeus, do you have any power over the air?”  
  
“A little!”  
  
“Then help me, or you’re all dead!” Mellie grabbed my hand, and an electric charge went through my arm. I understood what she needed. We had to control our fall and head for one of the open tunnels. The storm spirits were following us down, closing rapidly, bringing with them a cloud of deadly shrapnel.  
  
I grabbed Piper’s hand. “Group hug!”  
  
Hedge, Cath, Leo, and Piper tried to huddle together, hanging on to me and Mellie as they fell.  
  
“This is NOT GOOD!” Leo yelled.  
  
“Bring it on, gas bags!” Hedge yelled up at the storm spirits. “I’ll pulverize you!”  
  
“He’s magnificent,” Mellie sighed.  
  
“Concentrate?” I prompted.  
  
“Right!” she said.  
  
We channeled the wind so our fall became more of a tumble into the nearest open chute. Still, we slammed into the tunnel at painful speed and went rolling over each other down a steep vent that was not designed for people. There was no way we could stop.  
  
Mellie’s robes billowed around her. I and the others clung to her desperately, and we began to slow down, but the storm spirits were screaming into the tunnel behind us.  
  
“Can’t- hold- long,” Mellie warned. “Stay together! When the winds hit-”  
  
“You’re doing great, Mellie,” Hedge said. “My own mama was an aura, you know. She couldn’t have done better herself.”  
  
“Iris-message me?” Mellie pleaded.  
  
Hedge winked.  
  
“Could you guys plan your date later?” Cath screamed. “Look!”  
  
Behind us, the tunnel was turning dark. I could feel my ears pop as the pressure built.  
  
“Can’t hold them,” Mellie warned. “But I’ll try to shield you, do you one more favor.”  
  
“Thanks, Mellie,” I said. “I hope you get a new job.”  
  
She smiled, and then dissolved, wrapping us in a warm gentle breeze. Then the real winds hit, shooting us into the sky so fast, I blacked out.


	12. Chapter 12

**EMILY-CATHERINE**

I dreamed I was in a chariot. One I recognized.

"Hey, kiddo." I turned to the god.

"Dad!" I ran forward and hugged him. I might not be too fond of most gods, but my father was pretty chill. I let go and he slung his arm around my shoulder in a fatherly way. "How is Will doing, is he alright? And do you know how Nico is?" He chuckled. "That's my girl, always worried about her friends over herself. You and that Percy have that in common." I must've scowled, because he chuckled. "And still holding grudges worthy of my uncle, I see. To answer your question, Will is doing fine, though he misses you as much as you miss him. He's worried, you know."

"And Nico?" Apollo avoided my eyes. "I can't tell you. I'm sorry, Kiddo, but I'm under oath." I stepped out from underneath his arm, frowning.

"But I'm here with a purpose. I know you've figured out who you're up against - the one you guys call Dirt Woman." He winked at me before throwing on his rarely seen serious face. "You have to face your problems, you know - ignoring it isn't going to change anything. And I'm not just talking about the enemy." He gave me a pointed look, and I knew he was talking about my grudge and my coldness towards new people (or people in general).

"Your friend, Piper, she's figured it out too. Her mom is talking to her right now, and by the way, she wanted me to tell you something. Wait, I made it into a Haiku."

He fumbled for a paper and unfolded it.

" _Don't fight your feelings_

_It will end badly for all_

_And you will regret it._ "

He looked proud of himself, until I gave him a pointed look. "Dad, the last line has six syllables." He scanned the paper and sighed.

"I'll figure out a new one. In the meantime, before you wake up, I have to tell you one last thing. In your backpack, in the side pocket, theres three identical vials. They all contain one dose of the same potion. Take it, and for the duration of one single use, you'll have control of your singing powers. I can't give you more, ever, so use them wisely. They are just for until you have a better sense of management over the vastness of your powers."

I nodded, and he gave me a hug. "Good luck, Kiddo." He grinned at me. "I believe in you."

"Thanks, dad." I smiled, and woke up from Piper yelling.

“Mother!”  
  
Jason flinched, bumping the table with his knees, and then all of the others were awake.  
  
“What?” Hedge demanded. “Fight who? Where?”  
  
“Falling!” Leo grabbed the table. “No - not falling. Where are we?”  
  
Jason blinked, focused on Piper and made a little choking sound. “What are you wearing?”  
  
Piper blushed. She was wearing a turquoise dress with black leggings and black leather boots. She had on a silver charm bracelet and a snowboarding jacket, which amazingly went with the outfit pretty well. She looked like she’d gotten her hair done, too. She pulled out Katropis and checked her reflection.  
  
“It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s my- It’s nothing.”  
  
Leo grinned. “Aphrodite strikes again, huh? You’re gonna be the best-dressed warrior in town, beauty queen.”  
  
“Hey, Leo.” Jason nudged his arm. “You look at yourself recently?”  
  
“What... oh.”  
  
All of them had been give a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat. I thought it was pretty dorky, but in a cute way.  
  
“God, Leo.” Piper tried not to laugh. “I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt.”  
  
“Hey, shut up!”  
  
“I think he looks good,” said Coach Hedge. “’Course, I look better.”  
  
The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.

"Uhh, Millie, maybe you should see this..." Piper handed her dagger over, and my heart skipped a beat in shock. My hair...

My hair was long again. It was in a thick braid, and my black and crimson streaks I'd had before I cut my hair were back in it. The braid was tied with a ribbon that looked like it was pure gold, which brought out the flecks in my eyes, and my dark red lipstick matched my hair.

I had to refrain myself from stabbing the table with Katropis. I handed it back to Piper and inspected my outfit - a dark red tank top, black leather jacket, black shorts over red leggings and my combat boots. At least it was my style.

My favorite necklace - a black small-linked chain with a skull charm (a gift from Nico in thanks for helping him get actual gravestones for his mother and sister set up) that matched his skull ring - hung from my neck, the charm dangling into my top - right above my heart. I felt a pang of worry for the boy I considered to be my little brother more than I did with most of my half-siblings, but I masked it with a pokerface.

“Well,” Jason said, “at least your mom overlooked me.”  
  
I knew that wasn’t exactly true. Jason was dressed simply in jeans and a clean purple T-shirt, like he’d worn when he came to camp - meaning it was what he was wearing when he met Piper and Leo. He had new track shoes on, and his hair was newly trimmed. His eyes were the same color as the sky. Aphrodite’s message was clear: _This one needs no improvement._  
  
And I could clearly see on Piper's face that she agreed.  
  
“Anyway,” she said uncomfortably, “how did we get here?”  
  
“Oh, that would be Mellie,” Hedge said, chewing happily on his carnation. “Those winds shot us halfway across the country, I’d guess. We would’ve been smashed flat on impact, but Mellie’s last gift - a nice soft breeze - cushioned our fall.”  
  
“And she got fired for us,” Leo said. “Man, we suck.”  
  
“Ah, she’ll be fine,” Hedge said. “Besides, she couldn’t help herself. I’ve got that effect on nymphs. I’ll send her a message when we’re through with this quest and help her figure something out. That is one aura I could settle down with and raise a herd of baby goats.”  
  
“I’m going to be sick,” Piper said. “Anyone else want coffee?”  
  
“Coffee!” Hedge’s grin was stained blue from the flower. “I love coffee!”  
  
“Um,” Jason said, “but- money? Our packs?”  
  
Piper looked down. Our packs were at our feet, and everything seemed to still be there. I ran my hand over the side pocket and felt three oval-shaped bumps - the vials my dad told me about. Piper reached into her coat pocket brought out a wad of cash.  
  
Leo whistled. “Allowance? Piper, your mom rocks!”  
  
“Waitress!” Hedge called. “Six double espressos, and whatever these guys want. Put it on the girl’s tab.”

* * * * *  
  
It didn’t take us long to figure out where we were. The menus said “Café Verve, Walnut Creek, CA.” And according to the waitress, it was 9 a.m. on December 21, the winter solstice, which gave us three hours until Enceladus’s deadline.  
  
We didn’t have to wonder where Mount Diablo was, either. We could see it on the horizon, right at the end of the street. After the Rockies, Mount Diablo didn’t look very large, nor was it covered in snow. It seemed downright peaceful, its golden creases marbled with gray-green trees. But size was deceptive with mountains, I knew. It was probably much bigger up close. And appearances were deceptive too. Here we were, with sunny skies, mild weather, laid-back people, and a plate of chocolate chip scones with coffee. And only a few miles away, somewhere on that peaceful mountain, a super-powerful, super-evil giant was about to have her father for lunch.  
  
Leo pulled something out of his pocket - the old crayon drawing Aeolus had given him. Aphrodite must’ve thought it was important if she’d magically transferred it to his new outfit.  
  
“What is that?” Piper asked.  
  
Leo folded it up gingerly again and put it away. “Nothing. You don’t want to see my kindergarten artwork.”  
  
“It’s more than that,” Jason guessed. “Aeolus said it was the key to our success.”  
  
Leo shook his head. “Not today. He was talking about... later.”  
  
“How can you be sure?” I asked.  
  
“Trust me,” Leo said. “Now - what’s our game plan?”  
  
Coach Hedge belched. He’d already had three espressos and a plate of doughnuts, along with two napkins and another flower from the vase on the table. He would’ve eaten the silverware, except I had slapped his hand.  
  
“Climb the mountain,” Hedge said. “Kill everything except Piper’s dad. Leave.”  
  
“Thank you, General Eisenhower,” Jason grumbled.  
  
“Hey, I’m just saying!”  
  
“Guys,” Piper said. “There’s more you need to know.”  
  
It was tricky, because she couldn’t mention her mom; but she told them she’d figured some things out in her dreams. She told us about our real enemy: Gaea.

I nodded. "My dad, he visited me too. He didn't tell me, but he just confirmed what I'd started to figure out. I hadn't wanted to explore the idea, but we can't underestimate her." I purposely left out the part about my feelings. I didn't really know what to do with that yet. I also decided not to tell them about the vials yet.  
  
“But Gaea?” Leo shook his head. “Isn’t that Mother Nature? She’s supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and deer and rabbits doing her laundry.”  
  
“Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.  
  
“Okay, but-”  
  
“Listen, cupcake.” Coach Hedge dabbed the espresso out of his goatee. “The girls are telling us some serious stuff, here. Gaea’s no softie. I’m not even sure I could take her.”  
  
Leo whistled. “Really?”  
  
Hedge nodded. “This earth lady - she and her old man the sky were nasty customers.”  
  
“Ouranos,” Piper said. She looked up at the sky.  
  
“Right,” Hedge said. “So Ouranos, he’s not the best dad. He throws their first kids, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus. That makes Gaea mad, but she bides her time. Then they have another set of kids - the twelve Titans - and Gaea is afraid they’ll get thrown into prison too. So she goes up to her son Kronos-”  
  
“The big bad dude,” Leo said. “The one they defeated last summer.” He glanced at me, and so did Jason, but I avoided their eyes.  
  
“Right. And Gaea’s the one who gives him the scythe, and tells him, ‘Hey, why don’t I call your dad down here? And while he’s talking to me, distracted, you can cut him to pieces. Then you can take over the world. Wouldn’t that be great?’”  
  
Nobody said anything for a few moments.  
  
“Definitely not Snow White,” Piper decided.  
  
“Nah, Kronos was a bad guy,” Hedge said. “But Gaea is literally the mother of all bad guys. She’s so old and powerful, so huge, that it’s hard for her to be fully conscious. Most of the time, she sleeps, and that’s the way we like her - snoring.”

“But she talked to me,” Leo said. “How can she be asleep?”  
  
Gleeson brushed crumbs off his canary yellow lapel. He was on his sixth espresso now, and his pupils were as big as quarters. “Even in her sleep, part of her consciousness is active - dreaming, keeping watch, doing little things like causing volcanoes to explode and monsters to rise. Even now, she’s not fully awake. Believe me, you don’t want to see her fully awake.”  
  
“But she’s getting more powerful,” Piper said. “She’s causing the giants to rise. And if their king comes back - this guy Porphyrion-”  
  
“He’ll raise an army to destroy the gods,” Jason put in. “Starting with Hera. It’ll be another war. And Gaea will wake up fully.”  
  
Gleeson nodded. “Which is why it’s a good idea for us to stay off the ground as much as possible.”  
  
Leo looked warily at Mount Diablo. “So... climbing a mountain. That would be bad.”  
  
“Guys, I can’t ask you to do this,” Piper said. “This is too dangerous.”  
  
“You kidding?” Gleeson belched and showed them his blue carnation smile. “Who’s ready to beat stuff up?”

* * * * *  
  
I'd hoped the taxi could take us all the way to the top.  
  
No such luck. The cab made lurching, grinding sounds as it climbed the mountain road, and halfway up they found the ranger’s station closed, a chain blocking the way.  
  
“Far as I can go,” the cabbie said. “You sure about this? Gonna be a long walk back, and my car’s acting funny. I can’t wait for you.”  
  
“We’re sure.” Leo was the first one out. I followed, and saw the wheels had started to sink into the earth.  
  
The road was hard-packed dirt. No reason at all it should have been soft, but already Leo’s shoes were starting to sink. Gaea was messing with them.  
  
While the rest got out, Leo paid the cabbie. “Keep the change,” he said. “And get out of here. Quick.”  
  
The driver didn’t argue. Soon all we could see was his dust trail.  
  
The view from the mountain was pretty amazing. The whole inland valley around Mount Diablo was a patchwork of towns - grids of tree-lined streets and nice middle-class suburbs, shops, and schools. All these normal people living normal lives - the kind I sort of missed. I told myself that if I survived this quest, I would kidnap Will and visit Mom.  
  
“That’s Concord,” Jason said, pointing to the north. “Walnut Creek below us. To the south, Danville, past those hills. And that way...”  
  
He pointed west, where a ridge of golden hills held back a layer of fog, like the rim of a bowl. “That’s the Berkeley Hills. The East Bay. Past that, San Francisco.”  
  
“Jason?” Piper touched his arm. “You remember something? You’ve been here?”  
  
“Yes... no.” He gave her an anguished look. “It just seems important.”  
  
“That’s Titan land.” Coach Hedge nodded toward the west. “Bad place, Jason. Trust me, this is as close to ’Frisco as we want to get.”  
  
But Jason looked toward the foggy basin with such longing that I felt uneasy. Why did Jason seem so connected with that place - a place that was said to be evil, full of bad magic and old enemies? What if Jason came from here? Everybody kept hinting Jason was an enemy, that his arrival at Camp Half-Blood was a dangerous mistake.  
  
 _No_ , I thought. _Ridiculous_. Jason was my friend.

I shocked myself. I'd been trying not to get attached to Jason - he reminded me too much of Percy. But he was a sweetheart, and I could feel myself missing Percy - some part of me that still considered him to be important to me, despite everything he'd done wrong. Despite Charlie, despite Michael, despite Luke...  
  
“Hey, guys,” Leo said. “Let’s keep moving.”  
  
I noticed my feet were starting to sink into the ground.  
  
“Gaea is stronger here,” Hedge grumbled. He popped his hooves free from his shoes, then handed the shoes to Leo. “Keep those for me, Valdez. They’re nice.”  
  
Leo snorted. “Yes, sir, Coach. Would you like them polished?”  
  
“That’s varsity thinking, Valdez.” Hedge nodded approvingly, not noticing the very obvious sarcasm. “But first, we’d better hike up this mountain while we still can.”  
  
“How do we know where the giant is?” Piper asked.  
  
Jason pointed toward the peak. Drifting across the summit was a plume of smoke. From a distance, I had thought it was a cloud, but it wasn’t. Something was burning.

“Smoke equals fire,” Jason said. “We’d better hurry.”

Climbing a mountain when the earth was trying to swallow my feet was like jogging on a flypaper treadmill.  
  
In no time, Leo had rolled up the sleeves on his collarless shirt, even though the wind was cold and sharp. Piper had slipped her snowboarding jacket off her shoulders so it hung around her elbows. I was only wearing the jacket for protection at this point. I noticed that Leo slipped his hands into his tool belt and started summoning supplies - gears, a tiny wrench, some strips of bronze. As he walked, he built.  
  
By the time we neared the crest of the mountain, we we the most fashionably dressed sweaty, dirty heroes ever.  
  
Jason crouched behind a wall of rock. He gestured for the others to do the same. Leo crawled up next to him, me on his other side. Piper had to pull Coach Hedge down.  
  
“I don’t want to get my outfit dirty!” Hedge complained.  
  
“Shhh!” Piper said.  
  
Reluctantly, the satyr knelt.  
  
Just over the ridge where we were hiding, in the shadow of the mountain’s final crest, was a forested depression about the size of a football field, where the giant Enceladus had set up camp.  
  
Trees had been cut down to make a towering purple bonfire. The outer rim of the clearing was littered with extra logs and construction equipment.  
  
Why a giant needed those machines, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t see how the creature in front of us could even fit in the driver’s seat. The giant Enceladus was so large, so horrible, I didn’t want to look at him.  
  
But I forced myself to focus on the monster.  
  
To start with, he was thirty feet tall - easily as tall as the treetops. I was sure the giant could’ve seen us behind their ridge, but he seemed intent on the weird purple bonfire, circling it and chanting under his breath. From the waist up, the giant appeared humanoid, his muscular chest clad in bronze armor, decorated with flame designs. His arms were completely ripped. Each of his biceps was bigger than me - not that it was much of an achievement. I'd learnt to use my small size as an advantage in fighting, though.

The giant's skin was bronze but sooty with ash. His face was crudely shaped, like a half-finished clay figure, but his eyes glowed white, and his hair was matted in shaggy dreadlocks down to his shoulders, braided with bones.  
  
From the waist down, he was even more terrifying. His legs were scaly green, with claws instead of feet - like the forelegs of a dragon. In his hand, Enceladus held a spear the size of a flagpole. Every so often he dipped its tip in the fire, turning the metal molten red.  
  
“Okay,” Coach Hedge whispered. “Here’s the plan-”  
  
Leo elbowed him. “You’re not charging him alone!”  
  
“Aw, c’mon.”  
  
Piper choked back a sob (unsuccessfully). “Look.”  
  
Just visible on the other side of the bonfire was a man tied to a post. His head slumped like he was unconscious, so I couldn’t make out his face, but Piper didn’t seem to have any doubts.  
  
“Dad,” she said.  
  
“There’s four of us,” Hedge whispered urgently. “And only one of him.”  
  
“Did you miss the fact that he’s thirty feet tall?” I asked.  
  
“Okay,” Hedge said. “So you, Cath, me, and Jason distract him. Piper sneaks around and frees her dad.”  
  
We all looked at Jason.  
  
“What?” Jason asked. “I’m not the leader.”  
  
“Yes,” I said. “You are.”  
  
We'd never really talked about it, but no one disagreed, not even Hedge. Coming this far had been a team effort, but when it came to a life-and-death decision, I knew Jason was the one to ask. Even if he had no memory, I had a kind of balance to him. You could just tell he’d been in battles before, and he knew how to keep his cool. I wasn’t exactly the trusting type - at all - but I trusted Jason with my life.  
  
“I hate to say it,” Jason sighed, “but Coach Hedge is right. A distraction is Piper’s best chance.”  
  
 _Not a good chance_ , I thought. _Not even a survivable chance. Just our best chance._  
  
We couldn’t sit there all day and talk about it, though. It had to be close to noon - the giant’s deadline - and the ground was still trying to pull us down. My knees had already sunk two inches into the dirt.  
  
Leo looked at the construction equipment for a few moments.  
  
“Let’s boogie,” he said. “Before I come to my senses.”  
  
The plan went wrong almost immediately. Piper scrambled along the ridge, trying to keep her head down, while Leo, Jason, Coach Hedge and I walked straight into the clearing.  
  
Jason summoned his golden lance. He brandished it over his head and yelled, “Giant!” I pulled an arrow out of my quiver and nocked it on my bow.  
  
Enceladus stopped chanting at the flames. He turned toward them and grinned, revealing fangs like a saber-toothed tiger’s.  
  
“Well,” the giant rumbled. “What a nice surprise.”  
  
I didn’t like the sound of that.

Coach Hedge shouted, “Let the movie star go, you big ugly cupcake! Or I’m gonna plant my hoof right up your-”  
  
“Coach,” I snapped. “Shut up.”  
  
Enceladus roared with laughter. “I’ve forgotten how funny satyrs are. When we rule the world, I think I’ll keep your kind around. You can entertain me while I eat all the other mortals.”  
  
“Is that a compliment?” Hedge frowned at us. “I don’t think that was a compliment.”  
  
Enceladus opened his mouth wide, and his teeth began to glow.  
  
“Scatter!” Leo yelled.  
  
Jason and Hedge dove to the left as the giant blew fire - a furnace blast so hot even Festus would’ve been jealous. Leo disappeared behind the bulldozer and ran for another machine next.  
  
Jason rose and charge the giant. Coach Hedge ripped off his canary yellow jacket, which was now on fire, and bleated angrily. “I liked that outfit!” Then he raised his club and charged, too. I was about to shoot when Enceladus slammed his spear against the ground. The entire mountain shook.  
  
The shockwave sent me back a few feet. I blinked, momentarily stunned. Through a haze of grassfire and bitter smoke, I saw Jason staggering to his feet on the other side of the clearing. Coach Hedge was knocked out cold. He’d fallen forward and hit his head on a log. His furry hindquarters were sticking straight up, with his canary yellow pants around his knees.

I sat up and grabbed a new arrow, but when I looked at my bow...

It had snapped in half. Scowling, I threw my quiver off and took my short daggers - two twin handles that both sprouted celestial bronze blades with jagged bases on either side. I didn't like fighting with blades, but that didn't mean I wasn't good at it.

Just as I had gotten on my feet, the giant bellowed, “I see you, Piper McLean!” He turned and blew fire at a line of bushes. Piper ran into the clearing like a flushed quail, the underbrush burning behind her.

Enceladus laughed. “I’m happy you’ve arrived. And you brought me my prizes!”  
  
My gut twisted. This was the moment Piper had warned us about. We’d played right into Enceladus’s hands.  
  
The giant looked at Leo and laughed even louder. “That’s right, son of Hephaestus. I didn’t expect you all to stay alive this long, but it doesn’t matter. By bringing you here, Piper McLean has sealed the deal. If she betrays you, I’m as good as my word. She can take her father and go. What do I care about a movie star?”  
  
I could see Piper’s dad more clearly now. He wore a ragged dress shirt and torn slacks. His bare feet were caked with mud. He wasn’t completely unconscious, because he lifted his head and groaned. He had a nasty cut down the side of his face, and he looked thin and sickly.  
  
“Dad!” Piper yelled.  
  
Mr. McLean blinked, trying to focus. “Pipes...? Where...”  
  
Piper drew her dagger and faced Enceladus. “Let him go!”  
  
“Of course, dear,” the giant rumbled. “Swear your loyalty to me, and we have no problem. Only these others must die.”  
  
Piper looked back and forth between Leo and her dad.  
  
“He’ll kill you,” Leo warned. “Don’t trust him!”  
  
“Oh, come now,” Enceladus bellowed. “You know I was born to fight Athena herself? Mother Gaea made each of us giants with a specific purpose, designed to fight and destroy a particular god. I was Athena’s nemesis, the anti-Athena, you might say. Compared to some of my brethren - I am small! But I am clever. And I keep my bargain with you, Piper McLean. It’s part of my plan!”  
  
Jason was on his feet as well now, lance ready; but before either of us could act, Enceladus roared - a call so loud it echoed down the valley and was probably heard all the way to San Francisco.  
  
At the edge the woods, half a dozen ogre-like creatures rose up. I realized with nauseating certainty that they hadn’t simply been hiding there. They’d risen straight out of the earth.

The ogres shuffled forward. They were small compared to Enceladus, about seven feet tall. Each one of them had six arms - one pair in the regular spot, then an extra pair sprouting out the top of their shoulders, and another set shooting from the sides of their rib cages. They wore only ragged leather loincloths, and even across the clearing, I could smell them. Six guys who never bathed, with six armpits each. I decided if I survived this day, I’d have to take a three-hour shower just to forget the stench.  
  
Leo stepped toward Piper. “What- what are those?”  
  
Her blade reflected the purple light of the bonfire. “Gegenees.”  
  
“In English?” Leo asked.  
  
“The Earthborn,” she said. “Six-armed giants who fought Jason - the first Jason.”  
  
“Very good, my dear!” Enceladus sounded delighted. “They used to live on a miserable place in Greece called Bear Mountain. Mount Diablo is much nicer! They are lesser children of Mother Earth, but they serve their purpose. They’re good with construction equipment-”  
  
“Vroom, vroom!” one of the Earthborn bellowed, and the others took up the chant, each moving his six hands as though driving a car, as if it were some kind of weird religious ritual. “Vroom, vroom!”  
  
“Yes, thank you, boys,” Enceladus said. “They also have a score to settle with heroes. Especially anyone named Jason.”  
  
“Yay-son!” the Earthborn screamed. They all picked up clumps of earth, which solidified in their hands, turning to nasty pointed stones. “Where Yay-son? Kill Yay-son!”  
  
Enceladus smiled. “You see, Piper, you have a choice. Save your father, or ah, try to save your friends and face certain death.”  
  
Piper stepped forward. Her eyes blazed with such rage, even the Earthborn backed away. She radiated power and beauty, but it had nothing to do with her clothes or her makeup. I grinned a little - Silena would've been so proud to call Piper her sister.  
  
“You will not take the people I love,” she said. “None of them.”  
  
Her words rippled across the clearing with such force, the Earthborn muttered, “Okay. Okay, sorry,” and began to retreat.  
  
“Stand your ground, fools!” Enceladus bellowed. He snarled at Piper. “This is why we wanted you alive, my dear. You could have been so useful to us. But as you wish. Earth-born! I will show you Jason.”  
  
My heart sank. But the giant didn’t point to Jason. He pointed to the other side of the bonfire, where Tristan McLean hung helpless and half conscious.  
  
“There is Jason,” Enceladus said with pleasure. “Tear him apart!”  
  
My biggest surprise: One look from Jason, and all four of us knew the game plan. When had that happened, that we could read each other so well?  
  
Jason and I charged Enceladus, while Piper rushed to her father, and Leo dashed for the tree harvester, which stood between Mr. McLean and the Earthborn.

I let out a battle cry and charged as Jason distracted the giant.

Immortals tend to focus on the biggest threat, solely determined by parentage. We had to use that to our advantage.  
  
The battle had started well enough.  
  
Jason rolled away from the giant’s first spear thrust and jabbed Enceladus in the ankle. His javelin managed to pierce the thick dragon hide, and golden ichor - the blood of immortals - trickled down the giant’s clawed foot. Enceladus bellowed in pain and started to blast fire at Jason.

I took the opportunity to leap up and jam my dagger into his side, twisting my body to use my weight to the full advantage; I let the dagger create a gash along the entity of his leg as Jason scrambled away, rolling behind the giant He struck again behind Enceladus' knee.  
  
It went on like that for seconds, minutes - it was hard to judge. We could hear the fighting across the clearing - construction equipment grinding, fire roaring, monsters shouting, and rocks smashing into metal. I heard Leo and Piper yelling defiantly, which meant they were still alive. I tried not to think about it. We couldn’t afford to get distracted.  
  
Enceladus’s spear missed Jason by a millimeter. He kept dodging, but the ground stuck to his feet. Gaea was getting stronger, and the giant was getting faster. Enceladus might be slow, but he wasn’t dumb. He began anticipating Jason’s moves, and Jason’s attacks were only annoying him, making him more enraged.  
  
“I’m not some minor monster,” Enceladus bellowed. “I am a giant, born to destroy gods! Your little gold toothpick can’t kill me, boy.”  
  
I ran along his backside, using the jagged base of both daggers to create bloody - _ichory?_ my ADHD brain wondered - and ripped up wounds along both ankles, but Enceladus barely payed attention, as he was in the midst of nearly stabbing Jason. I had only managed to delay his strike - but it did buy Jason a little time.  
  
Jason raised his javelin to block the spear- a big mistake. He managed to deflect the it, but it grazed his shoulder, and his arm dropped.  
  
He backed up, almost tripping over a burning log. I almost ran over to him, but I needed to keep the giant busy.  
  
We had to delay - to keep the giant’s attention fixed on me while my friends dealt with the Earthborn and rescued Piper’s dad. I couldn’t fail.  
  
Jason retreated, maybe trying to lure the giant to the edge of the clearing? Enceladus seemed to be able to sense his weariness. The giant smiled, baring his fangs.  
  
“The mighty Jason Grace,” he taunted. “Yes, we know about you, son of Jupiter. The one who led the assault on Mount Othrys. The one who single-handedly slew the Titan Krios and toppled the black throne.”  
  
"Jason, no!" I tried to warn him not to think about it, but he didn't seem to even hear me.  
  
“What are you talking about?” he asked. He realized his mistake when Enceladus breathed fire.  
  
Distracted, Jason moved too slowly. The blast missed him, but heat blistered his back. He slammed into the ground, his clothes smoldering. He was blinded from ash and smoke, choking as he tried to breathe.  
  
He scrambled back as the giant’s spear cleaved the ground between his feet. I was running, but Gaea was toying with me.  
  
Jason managed to stand. He took a deep breath and charged. I felt helpless, my feet might as well have been buried in cement at this point.   
  
Enceladus let Jason approach, grinning with anticipation. At the last second, Jason faked a strike and rolled between the giant’s legs. He came up quickly and thrust, ready to stab the giant in the small of his back, but Enceladus anticipated the trick. He stepped aside with too much speed and agility for a giant, as if the earth were helping him move. Luckily, it released its hold on me, and I charged.  
  
The giant swept his spear sideways, met Jason’s javelin - and with a snap like a shotgun blast, the golden weapon shattered.  
  
The explosion was hotter than the giant’s breath, blinding me with golden light. The force knocked me off my feet and squeezed the breath out of me.  
  
When I regained his focus, I was sitting at the rim of a crater, Jason a few feet to my side. He looked dazed as well. Enceladus stood at the other side, staggering and confused. The javelin’s destruction had released so much energy, it had blasted a perfect cone-shaped pit thirty feet deep, fusing the dirt and rock into a slick glassy substance. I wasn’t sure how we’d survived, but my clothes were steaming. I could tell he was out of energy, and on top of that, he had no weapon. And Enceladus was still very much alive. I wanted to hand him a dagger, but my arms refused to move, and so did my legs - my entire body, really.  
  
Enceladus blinked at the destruction, then laughed. “Impressive! Unfortunately, that was your last trick, demigod.”  
  
Enceladus leaped the crater in a single bound, planting his feet on either side of Jason. The giant raised his spear, its tip hovering six feet over Jason’s chest.  
  
“And now,” Enceladus said, “my first sacrifice to Gaea!”  
  
Just as I was losing hope, Leo’s voice yelled, “Heads up!”  
  
A large black metal wedge slammed into Enceladus with a massive thunk! The giant toppled over and slid into the pit.  
  
“Jason, Cath, get up!” Piper called. Her voice energized me, shook me out of his stupor. I could see Jason sitting up while Piper grabbed him under his arms and hauled him to his feet.  
  
“Don’t die on me,” she ordered. “You are not dying on me.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.” She held out her hand to me, and I took it. I surprised her - and, frankly, myself - by pulling her into a quick hug.

I let go and looked around.

About a hundred feet behind Piper, Leo was standing over a piece of construction equipment - a long cannon-like thing with a single massive piston, the edge broken clean off.  
  
Then I looked down in the crater and saw where the other end of the hydraulic ax had gone. Enceladus was struggling to rise, an ax blade the size of a washing machine stuck in his breastplate.  
  
Amazingly, the giant managed to pull the ax blade free. He yelled in pain and the mountain trembled. Golden ichor soaked the front of his armor, but Enceladus stood.  
  
Shakily, he bent down and retrieved his spear.  
  
“Good try.” The giant winced. “But I cannot be beaten.”  
  
As they watched, the giant’s armor mended itself, and the ichor stopped flowing. Even the cuts on his dragon-scale legs, which we had worked so hard to make, were now just pale scars.  
  
Leo ran up to them, saw the giant, and cursed. “What is it with this guy? Die, already!”  
  
“My fate is preordained,” Enceladus said. “Giants cannot be killed by gods or heroes.”  
  
“Only by both,” Jason said. The giant’s smile faltered, and I saw in his eyes something like fear. “It’s true, isn’t it? Gods and demigods have to work together to kill you.”  
  
“You will not live long enough to try!” The giant started stumbling up the crater’s slope, slipping on the glassy sides.  
  
“Anyone have a god handy?” Leo asked.  
  
My heart filled with dread. I looked at the giant below them, struggling to get out of the pit.

“Leo,” he said, “if you’ve got a rope in that tool belt, get it ready.”  
  
Jason leaped at the giant with no weapon but his bare hands.  
  
“Enceladus!” Piper yelled. “Look behind you!”  
  
It was an obvious trick, but her voice was so compelling, even I bought it. The giant said, “What?” and turned like there was an enormous spider on his back.  
  
Jason tackled his legs at just the right moment. The giant started losing his balance, and I realized what had to happen. I charged, and somehow managed to jump high and far enough to hit his enormous chest. Enceladus slammed into the crater and slid to the bottom. While he tried to rise, Jason put his arms around the giant’s neck. When Enceladus struggled to his feet, Jason was riding his shoulders, and I started stabbing every piece of skin I could find, dragging the daggers as I pulled them out to widen the wounds.  
  
“Get off!” Enceladus screamed. He tried to grab Jason’s legs, but Jason scrabbled around, squirming and climbing over the giant’s hair.  
  
I prayed to Zeus. I somehow knew Jason was asking him something stupidly heroic, and I tried to reason. _He's your son. I'm more expendable to you, am I not? Take me instead. Bring Jason to safety, Lord Zeus I beg of You._

Suddenly I could smell the metallic scent of a storm. Darkness swallowed the sun. The giant froze, sensing it too.  
  
Jason yelled to us, “Hit the deck!”  
  
And every hair on my head stood straight up.  
  
 _Crack_!  
  
Lightning surged through my body, straight through Jason and Enceladus, and into the ground. The giant’s back stiffened, and Jason was thrown clear. I was still hanging on to a dagger, which was hanging onto the bronze armour of the giant. I saw Jason was slipping down the side of the crater, and the crater was cracking open. The lightning bolt had split the mountain itself. The earth rumbled and tore apart, and Enceladus’s legs slid into the chasm. He clawed helplessly at the glassy sides of the pit, and just for a moment managed to hold on to the edge, his hands trembling.

I managed to yank my dagger loose, and scrambled upwards  
  
Enceladus fixed Jason with a look of hatred. “You’ve won nothing, boy. My brothers are rising, and they are ten times as strong as I. We will destroy the gods at their roots! You will die, and Olympus will die with-”  
  
The giant lost his grip and fell into the crevice. I clawed my way upwards, almost with Jason.  
  
The earth shook. Jason fell toward the rift.

I lost my grip. Panic surged through me, and I closed my eyes.

 _Save the others, please_ , I prayed to every god and goddess in existence.

 _It is not yet your time, my hero. The eight will need you._  A feminine voice spoke clearly through my mind. I felt a tug in my gut and was pulled upward.  
  
“Grab hold!” Leo yelled.  
  
Jason’s feet were at the edge of the chasm when he grabbed the rope, and he held his hand out to me, a desperate look in his eyes. I was still a few feet underneath him, but I was still rising, and I managed to grab his wrist. Leo and Piper pulled us up, but I didn't let go of Jason. My grip on his lower arm must've been cutting off his circulation, and I did loosen my fingers, but the touch was comforting - it reminded me of Will a little bit.  
  
We stood together, exhausted and terrified, as the chasm closed like an angry mouth. The ground stopped pulling at our feet.  
  
For now, Gaea was gone.  
  
The mountainside was on fire. Smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air. I spotted a helicopter - maybe firefighters or reporters - coming toward them.  
  
All around us was carnage. The Earthborn had melted into piles of clay, leaving behind only their rock missiles and some nasty bits of loincloth, but I figured they would re-form soon enough. Construction equipment lay in ruins. The ground was scarred and blackened.  
  
Coach Hedge started to move. He sat up with a groan and rubbed his head. His canary yellow pants were now the color of Dijon mustard mixed with mud.  
  
He blinked and looked around him at the battle scene. “Did I do this?”  
  
Before any of us could reply, Hedge picked up his club and got shakily to his feet. “Yeah, you wanted some hoof? I gave you some hoof, cupcakes! Who’s the goat, huh?”  
  
He did a little dance, kicking rocks and making what were probably rude satyr gestures at the piles of clay.  
  
Leo cracked a smile, and Jason started to laugh. It probably sounded a little hysterical, but it was such a relief to be alive, he didn’t care.  
  
Then a man stood up across the clearing. Tristan McLean staggered forward. His eyes were hollow, shell-shocked, like someone who’d just walked through a nuclear wasteland.  
  
“Piper?” he called. His voice cracked. “Pipes, wha- what is-”  
  
He couldn’t complete the thought. Piper ran over to him and hugged him tightly, but he almost didn’t seem to know her.  
  
Mr. McLean had too many memories, too much trauma his mind just couldn’t handle. He was coming apart.  
  
“We need to get him out of here,” Jason said.  
  
“Yeah, but how?” Leo said. “He’s in no shape to walk.”  
  
Jason glanced up at the helicopter, which was now circling directly overhead. “Can you make us a bullhorn or something?” he asked Leo. “Piper has some talking to do.”  
  
* * * * *

“No,” Piper's dad was muttering, mainly to himself, as we picked him up off the ground. “Piper, what- there were monsters- there were monsters-”  
  
She needed both Leo’s and Jason’s help to hold him, while Coach Hedge and I gathered our supplies. I grabbed my bow and stuffed both broken halves into my backpack. Fortunately Hedge had put his pants and shoes back on, so we didn’t have to explain the goat legs.  
  
It broke my heart to see Piper's dad like this - pushed beyond the breaking point, crying like a little boy. I especially couldn't  bear for this to have ahppened to Piper.

Percy had once told me something that I wholeheartedly agreed with; the best people get the rottenest luck.

“It’ll be okay, Dad,” she said, making her voice as soothing as possible. She probably didn’t want to charmspeak her own father, but it seemed the only way. “These people are my friends. We’re going to help you. You’re safe now.”  
  
He blinked, and looked up at helicopter rotors. “Blades. They had a machine with so many blades. They had six arms...”  
  
When we got him to the bay doors, the pilot came over to help. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked.  
  
“Smoke inhalation,” Jason suggested. “Or heat exhaustion.”  
  
“We should get him to a hospital,” the pilot said.  
  
“It’s okay,” Piper said. “The airport is good.”  
  
“Yeah, the airport is good,” the pilot agreed immediately. Then she frowned, as if uncertain why she’d changed her mind. “Isn’t he Tristan McLean, the movie star?”  
  
“No,” Piper said. “He only looks like him. Forget it.”  
  
“Yeah,” the pilot said. “Only looks like him. I—” She blinked, confused. “I forgot what I was saying. Let’s get going.”

 

Jason raised his eyebrows at Piper, obviously impressed, but Piper looked miserable.  
  
Finally we got him on board, and the helicopter took off. The pilot kept getting questions over her radio, asking her where she was going, but she ignored them. We veered away from the burning mountain and headed toward the Berkeley Hills.  
  
“Piper.” Her dad grasped her hand and held on like he was afraid he’d fall. “It’s you? They told me- they told me you would die. They said... horrible things would happen.”  
  
“It’s me, Dad. Everything’s going to be okay.”  
  
“They were monsters,” he said. “Real monsters. Earth spirits, right out of Grandpa Tom’s stories - and the Earth Mother was angry with me. And the giant, Tsul’kälû, breathing fire-” He focused on Piper again, his eyes like broken glass, reflecting a crazy kind of light. “They said you were a demigod. Your mother was...”  
  
“Aphrodite,” Piper said. “Goddess of love.”  
  
“I- I-” He took a shaky breath, then seemed to forget how to exhale.  
  
We were careful not to watch. Leo fiddled with a lug nut from his tool belt. Jason gazed at the valley below - the roads backing up as mortals stopped their cars and gawked at the burning mountain. Gleeson chewed on the stub of his carnation, and for once the satyr didn’t look in the mood to yell or boast.

I was fiddling with one of the vials. Apollo had said to use them wisely, but I knew what I needed to do - but only if Piper agreed.  
  
“I didn’t know about Mom,” Piper told him. “Not until you were taken. When we found out where you were, we came right away. My friends helped me. No one will hurt you again.”  
  
Her dad couldn’t stop shivering. “You’re heroes - you and your friends. I can’t believe it. You’re a real hero, not like me. Not playing a part. I’m so proud of you, Pipes.” But the words were muttered listlessly, in a semi-trance.  
  
He gazed down on the valley. “Your mother never told me.”  
  
“She thought it was for the best.” It sounded lame, and no amount of charmspeak could change that.  
  
She held his hand, speaking to him about small things - her time at the Wilderness School, her cabin at Camp Half-Blood. She told him how Coach Hedge ate carnations and got knocked on his butt on Mount Diablo, how Leo had tamed a dragon, how Jason had made wolves back down by talking in Latin, and how I had helped heal her foot by singing. Ws smiled reluctantly as she recounted our adventures. Her dad seemed to relax as she talked, but he didn’t smile. I wasn’t even sure he heard her.  
  
As we passed over the hills into the East Bay, Jason tensed. He leaned so far out the doorway I was afraid he’d fall. Feeling a surge of protectiveness, I linked my arm through his - just like me and Will always did - just to make sure he wouldn't drop out of the helicopter.  
  
He pointed. “What is that?”  
  
I looked down, but she didn’t see anything interesting - just hills, woods, houses, little roads snaking through the canyons. A highway cut through a tunnel in the hills, connecting the East Bay with the inland towns.  
  
“Where?” Piper asked.  
  
“That road,” he said. “The one that goes through the hills.”  
  
Piper picked up the com helmet the pilot had given her and relayed the question over the radio. The answer wasn’t very exciting.  
  
“She says it’s Highway 24,” Piper reported. “That’s the Caldecott Tunnel. Why?”  
  
Jason stared intently at the tunnel entrance, but he said nothing. It disappeared from view as they flew over downtown Oakland, but Jason still stared into the distance, his expression almost as unsettled as Piper’s dad’s.  
  
“Monsters,” he said, a tear tracing his cheek. “I live in a world of monsters.”

I pulled Piper away.

"Pipes, I have an idea - it's not a solution, but it'll help, at least for a while." I showed her the vials and told her what my dad had said about them. "I can use one now, and help him calm down, at least until we figure out how to proceed."

"Cath, I can't ask you to do this. You only have three of them, and you have to use them wisely." "I am," I defied her. She eventually nodded, and I uncorked one.

I drank the potion, which kind of tasted like chamomile, and sat down next to Piper's dad, her on his other side. "Dad, your favorite song is still Bed of Roses, right?"

Tristan McLean nodded, his eyes far away. I nodded at Piper to indicate I knew the song, and opened my mouth. Silence fell all around us, even the blades above us seemed to quiet down. I closed my eyes in concentration as I sung, and I felt powerful - as always - but, more importantly, I fell in control. I didn't even feel tired.

The entirety of the song passed, and in slight panic, I kept singing, transitioning to a song I vaguely remember hearing my mother sing along to when Will and I were maybe 4 or 5 years old. I kept on singing the whole flight, a new calm song I didn't know I knew the lyrics to coming to mind each time the last one finished.


	13. Chapter 13

**LEO**

Air traffic control didn't want to let an unscheduled helicopter land at the Oakland Airport - until Piper got on the radio. Then it turned out to be no problem.

We unloaded on the tarmac, and everyone looked at Piper.  
  
“What now?” Jason asked her.  
  
She looked uncomfortable.

“First thing,” she said. “I- I have to get my dad home. I’m sorry, guys.”  
  
Our faces fell.  
  
“Oh,” I said. “I mean, absolutely. He needs you right now. We can take it from here.”  
  
“Pipes, no.” Her dad had been sitting in the helicopter doorway, a blanket around his shoulders. He looked more in control of his own mind than before as he stumbled to his feet. “You have a mission. A quest. I can’t-”  
  
“I’ll take care of him,” said Coach Hedge.  
  
Piper stared at him. The satyr was probably the last person she’d expected to offer. “You?” she asked.  
  
“I’m a protector,” Gleeson said. “That’s my job, not fighting.”  
  
He sounded a little crestfallen, and I realized maybe Piper shouldn’t have recounted how he got knocked unconscious in the last battle. In his own way, maybe the satyr was as sensitive as her dad.  
  
Then Hedge straightened, and set his jaw. “Of course, I’m good at fighting, too.” He glared at us all, daring them to argue.  
  
“Yes,” Jason said.  
  
“Terrifying,” I agreed.  
  
The coach grunted. “But I’m a protector, and I can do this. Your dad’s right, Piper. You need to carry on with the quest.”  
  
“But...” Piper’s eyes stung, as if she were back in the forest fire. “Dad...”  
  
He held out his arms, and she hugged him.

“Let’s give them a minute,” Jason said, and we took the pilot a few yards down the tarmac.

"How come you didn't pass out after singing to him?" I turned to Jason, who was looking at Millie.

"Long story short, I got three vials with power-control potions from my dad. I used one. I couldn't not help Piper." I'm sure I looked just as impressed as Jason did.

Silence fell after that, but it wasn't uncomfortable - not counting the pilot, who looked more and more out of place as the minutes grew. Eventually, Piper's dad drank some pink liquid from a vial. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he slumped forward. Piper caught him, and we ran up to help.  
  
“Got him,” Hedge said. The satyr stumbled, but he was strong enough to hold Tristan McLean upright. “I already asked our ranger friend to call up his plane. It’s on the way now. Home address?”  
  
Piper checked her dad’s pocket and pulled out a Blackberry.

“Everything’s on here,” Piper said. “Address, his chauffeur’s number. Just watch out for Jane.”  
  
Hedge’s eyes lit up, like he sensed a possible fight. “Who’s Jane?”  
  
By the time Piper explained, her dad’s sleek white Gulf-stream had taxied next to the helicopter.  
  
Hedge and the flight attendant got Piper’s dad on board. Then Hedge came down one last time to say his good-byes. He gave Piper and Millie both a hug and glared at me and Jason. “You cupcakes take care of these girls, you hear? Or I’m gonna make you do push-ups.”  
  
“You got it, Coach,” I said, a smile tugging at his mouth.  
  
“No push-ups,” Jason promised.  
  
Piper gave the old satyr one more hug. “Thank you, Gleeson. Take care of him, please.”  
  
“I got this, McLean,” he assured her. “They got root beer and veggie enchiladas on this flight, and one hundred percent linen napkins - yum! I could get used to this.”  
  
Trotting up the stairs, he lost one shoe, and his hoof was visible for just a second. The flight attendant’s eyes widened, but she looked away and pretended nothing was wrong. I figured she’d probably seen stranger things, working for Tristan McLean.  
  
When the plane was heading down the runaway, Piper started to cry. Before long, Jason was hugging her and Cath was rubbing her back while I stood uncomfortably nearby, pulling Kleenex out of his tool belt.  
  
“Your dad’s in good hands,” Jason said. “You did amazing.”  
  
She sobbed into his shirt and was silent for a little more before speaking. “Thank you, guys,” Piper said. “I-”  
  
She tried to form words, but we understood.  
  
Then, right next to Jason, the air began to shimmer. At first I thought it was heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter, but an image appeared in the air - a dark-haired girl in silver winter camouflage, holding a bow.  
  
Jason stumbled back in surprise. “Thalia!”  
  
“Thank the gods,” said the Hunter. The scene behind her was hard to make out, but I heard yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions.  
  
“We’ve found her,” Thalia said. “Where are you?”  
  
“Oakland,” he said. “Where are you?”  
  
“The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you’re not too far. We’re holding off the giant’s minions, but we can’t hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it’s all over.”  
  
“Then it’s not too late?” Piper cried. Hope surged through me, but Thalia’s expression quickly dampened it.  
  
“Not yet,” Thalia said. “But Jason - it’s worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry.”  
  
“But where is the Wolf House?” he pleaded.  
  
“Our last trip,” Thalia said, her image starting to flicker. “The park. Jack London. Remember?”  
  
This made no sense to me, but Jason looked like he’d been shot. He tottered, his face pale, and the Iris message disappeared.  
  
“Bro, you all right?” I asked. “You know where she is?”  
  
“Yes,” Jason said. “Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air.”  
  
Piper turned to the ranger pilot, who’d been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression.  
  
“Ma’am,” Piper said with her best smile. “You don’t mind helping us one more time, do you?”  
  
“I don’t mind,” the pilot agreed.  
  
“We can’t take a mortal into battle,” Jason said. “It’s too dangerous.” He turned to me. “Do you think you could fly this thing?”  
  
“Um...” I put my hand on the side of the helicopter and concentrated hard, basically listening to the machine.  
  
“Bell 412HP utility helicopter,” I said, though I had no idea how I knew. “Composite four-blade main rotor, cruising speed twenty-two knots, service ceiling twenty-thousand feet. The tank is near full. Sure, I can fly it.”  
  
Piper smiled at the ranger again. “You don’t have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We’ll return it.”  
  
“I-” The pilot nearly choked on the words, but she got them out: “I don’t have a problem with that.”  
  
I grinned. “Hop in, kids. Uncle Leo’s gonna take you for a ride.”  
  
* * * * *  
  
The sun was going down as we flew north over the Richmond Bridge, and I couldn’t believe the day had gone so quickly. Once again, nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly.  
  
Piloting the chopper, I went back and forth between confidence and panic. If I didn’t think about it, I found myself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back on the stick, and flying straight. If I allowed himself to consider what I was doing, I started freaking out. I imagined my Aunt Rosa yelling at him in Spanish, telling me I was a delinquent lunatic who was going to crash and burn. Part of me suspected she was right.  
  
“Going okay?” Piper asked from the copilot’s seat. She sounded more nervous than I was, so I put on a brave face.  
  
“Aces,” I said. “So what’s the Wolf House?”  
  
Jason knelt between their seats, and Millie leaned on his shoulder. “An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it - Jack London.”  
  
I couldn’t place the name. “He an actor?”  
  
“Writer,” Piper said. “Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?”  
  
“Yeah,” Jason said. “He was a son of Mercury - I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion - the Wolf House.”  
  
“Named that ’cause he wrote about wolves?” I guessed.  
  
“Partially,” Jason said. “But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves - he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There’re a lot of holes in his life story - how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much - stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod.”  
  
The bay slipped behind us, and the helicopter continued north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as I could see.  
  
“So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood,” I guessed.  
  
“No,” Jason said. “No, he didn’t.”  
  
“Bro, you’re freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?”  
  
“Pieces,” Jason said. “Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It’s where London started his journey as a child - where he found out he was a demigod. That’s why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn’t meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site.”  
  
“So,” Piper said, “how do you know all this?”  
  
A shadow crossed Jason’s face. Probably just a cloud, but I could swear the shape looked like an eagle.  
  
“I started my journey there too,” Jason said. “It’s a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion - that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully.”  
  
I kept my hand on the joystick, guiding the chopper at full speed - racing toward the north. I could see some weather ahead - a spot of darkness like a cloud bank or a storm, right where we were going.  
  
Piper’s dad had called me a hero earlier. And I couldn’t believe some of the things I’d done - smacking around Cyclopes, disarming exploding doorbells, battling six-armed ogres with construction equipment. They seemed like they had happened to another person. I was just Leo Valdez, an orphaned kid from Houston. I’d spent his life running away, and part of me still wanted to run. What was I thinking, flying toward a cursed mansion to fight more evil monsters?  
  
My mom’s voice echoed in my head: _Nothing is unfixable._  
  
Except the fact that you’re gone forever, I thought.  
  
Seeing Piper and her dad back together had really driven that home. Even if I survived this quest and saved Hera, I wouldn’t have any happy reunions. I wouldn’t be going back to a loving family. I wouldn’t see my mom.  
  
The helicopter shuddered. Metal creaked, and I could almost imagine the tapping was Morse code: _Not the end. Not the end._  
  
I leveled out the chopper, and the creaking stopped. I was just hearing things. I couldn’t dwell on my mom, or the idea that kept bugging me - that Gaea was bringing souls back from the Underworld - so why couldn’t I make some good come out of it? Thinking like that would drive me crazy. I had a job to do.  
  
I let my instincts take over - just like flying the helicopter. If I thought about the quest too much, or what might happen afterward, I’d panic. The trick was not to think - just get through it.  
  
“Thirty minutes out,” I told my friends, though I wasn’t sure how I knew. “If you want to get some rest, now’s a good time.”  
  
Jason strapped himself into the back of the helicopter and passed out almost immediately. Piper, Millie and I stayed wide-awake.  
  
After a few minutes of awkward silence, I said, “Your dad’ll be fine, you know. Nobody’s gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around.”  
  
Piper glanced over, and I was struck by how much she’d changed. Not just physically. Her presence was stronger. She seemed more... here. At Wilderness School she’d spent the semester trying not to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, the back of the bus, the corner of the lunchroom as far as possible from the loud kids. Now she would be impossible to miss. It didn’t matter what she was wearing - you’d have to look at her.  
  
“My dad,” she said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason. I’m worried about him.”  
  
I nodded. The closer we got to that bank of dark clouds, the more I worried, too. “He’s starting to remember. That’s got to make him a little edgy.”  
  
“But what if... what if he’s a different person?”  
  
I had had the same thought. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason’s whole personality be an illusion, too? If our friend wasn’t our friend, and we were heading into a cursed mansion - a dangerous place for demigods - what would happen if Jason’s full memory came back in the middle of a battle?  
  
“Nah,” I decided. “After all we’ve been through? I can’t see it. We’re a team. Jason can handle it.”  
  
Piper smoothed her blue dress, which was tattered and burned from their fight on Mount Diablo. “I hope you’re right. I need him...” She cleared her throat. “I mean I need to trust him...”  
  
“I know,” I said. After seeing her dad break down, I understood Piper couldn’t afford to lose Jason as well. She’d just watched Tristan McLean, her cool suave movie star dad, reduced to near insanity. I could barely stand to watch that, but for Piper - Wow, I couldn’t even imagine. I figured that would make her insecure about herself, too. If weakness was inherited, she’d be wondering, could she break down the same way her dad did?  
  
“Hey, don’t worry,” I said.

"Piper, you are singlehandedly one of the best people I know. You're amazing, and I am so proud of you." Millie put her arm around Piper as she spoke, and it stuck me how much she'd opened up to us throughout the quest - her jaw wasn't set, the corners of her mouth weren't forcibly pulled down, and her eyes were almost relaxed; I even realized she had little smile crinkles around them when she squinted.

“You’re the strongest, most powerful beauty queen I’ve ever met. You can trust yourself. For what it’s worth, you can trust me too.” The helicopter dipped in a wind shear right after I finished speaking, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I cursed and righted the chopper.  
  
Piper laughed nervously. “Trust you, huh?”  
  
“Ah, shut up, already.” But I grinned at her, and for a second, it felt like I was just relaxing comfortably with a friend.  
  
Then we hit the storm clouds.  
  
At first, I thought rocks were pelting the windshield. Then I realized it was sleet. Frost built up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out his view.  
  
“An ice storm?” Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. “Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?”  
  
I wasn’t sure, but something about this storm seemed conscious, malevolent - like it was intentionally slamming them.

 

Jason woke up quickly. He crawled forward, grabbing our seats for balance. “We’ve got to be getting close.”  
  
I was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly it wasn’t so easy to drive the chopper. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn’t been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and we started to lose altitude.  
  
Below us, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and I yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.  
  
“There!” Jason shouted.  
  
A small valley opened up before us, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. I aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around us were flashes of light that reminded me of the tracer fire at Midas’s compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.  
  
I set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. I was about to relax when I heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.  
  
“Out!” I screamed.  
  
We leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking me off my feet and splattering ice all over me.  
  
I got up shakily and saw that the world’s largest snowball - a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage - had completely flattened the Bell 412.  
  
“You all right?” Jason ran up to him, Piper at his side. They both looked fine except for being speckled with snow and mud. Millie came over from my other side, and gave everyone a quick once-over, probably checking for major injuries. Her red lipstick was pretty much entirely gone at this point and she had a twig and some pine needles sticking out of her braid. There were many holes in her tights and she was missing one of the little black knobs Aphrodite had put in her ears.

She looked absolutely beautiful.  
  
“Yeah.” I answered Jason as soon as I realized I had been staring for a second too long. “Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter.”  
  
Piper pointed south. “Fighting’s over there.” Then she frowned. “No... it’s all around us.”  
  
She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.  
  
Behind us loomed Jack London’s dream home - a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. I could imagine how it had looked before it burned down - a combination log cabin and castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel. I could totally believe the ruins were cursed.  
  
“Jason!” a girl’s voice called.  
  
Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre - one of the Earthborn - burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.  
  
“Look out!” Leo yelled. We rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.  
  
Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off. “That was my last one.” She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. “Stupid ogre.”  
  
“Nice shot, though,” Leo said.  
  
Thalia ignored him (as usual), hugged Jason and Millie and nodded to Piper. “Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we’ll be overrun any minute.”  
  
“By Earthborn?” Jason asked.  
  
“And wolves - Lycaon’s minions.” Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. “Also storm spirits-”  
  
“But we gave them to Aeolus!” Piper protested.  
  
“Who tried to kill us,” Leo reminded her. “Maybe he’s helping Gaea again.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Thalia said. “But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we’re surrounded. I don’t know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera.”  
  
“Where is she?” Jason asked.  
  
“Inside,” Thalia said. “We tried to free her, but we can’t figure out how to break the cage. It’s only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that’s the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don’t free Hera soon-”  
  
She didn’t need to finish the thought.  
  
The four of us followed her into the ruined mansion.  
  
Jason stepped over the threshold and immediately collapsed.  
  
“Hey!” I caught him. “None of that, man. What’s wrong?”  
  
“This place...” Jason shook his head. “Sorry... It came rushing back to me.”  
  
“So you have been here,” Piper said.  
  
“We both have,” Thalia said. Her expression was grim, like she was reliving someone’s death. “This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared.”  
  
“She gave me to the wolves,” Jason murmured. “At Hera’s insistence. She gave me to Lupa.”  
  
“That part I didn’t know.” Thalia frowned. “Who is Lupa?”  
  
An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.  
  
“Maybe this isn’t the time for questions,” I suggested. “Show us the goddess.”  
  
Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led us between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.  
  
One of the spires was much bigger - a solid dark mass about twenty feet high, and to me it looked like a stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils he could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck - rising.  
  
On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that I doubted I could’ve gotten my arm through. Still, I could see inside. And in the center of the cage stood Tía Callida.  
  
She looked exactly like I remembered: dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes.  
  
She didn’t glow or radiate any sort of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman, my good old psychotic babysitter.  
  
I dropped into the pool and approached the cage. “Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?”  
  
She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. “Don’t inspect me like I’m one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!”  
  
Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste - or maybe she was looking at the goddess. “We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn’t in it. If it was up to me, I’d just leave her in there.”  
  
“Ohh, Thalia Grace,” the goddess said. “When I get out of here, you’ll be sorry you were ever born.”  
  
“Save it!” Thalia snapped. “You’ve been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth-”  
  
“She was disrespectful!”  
  
“You dropped a statue on my legs.”  
  
“It was an accident!”  
  
“And you took my brother!” Thalia’s voice cracked with emotion. “Here - on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!”  
  
“Hey,” Jason intervened. “Thalia - Sis - I know. But this isn’t the time. You should help your Hunters.”  
  
Thalia clenched her jaw. “Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn’t worth it.”  
  
Thalia tossed her bow to Millie, turned, leaped out of the pool, and stormed from the building.  
  
I turned to Hera with grudging respect. “Intestinally challenged cows?”  
  
“Focus on the cage, Leo,” she grumbled. “And Jason - you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well.”  
  
“I’m not your champion, lady,” Jason said. “I’m only helping you because you stole my memories and you’re better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what’s going on with that?”  
  
He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag. Was I imagining it, or had it grown taller since they’d gotten here?  
  
“That, Jason,” Hera said, “is the king of the giants being reborn.”  
  
“Gross,” Piper said.  
  
“Indeed,” Hera said. “Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again - my power. For weeks I’ve grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form.”  
  
“So you’re like a heat lamp,” I guessed. “Or fertilizer.”  
  
The goddess glared at him, but I didn’t care. This old lady had been making my life miserable since I was a baby. I totally had rights to rag on her.  
  
“Joke all you wish,” Hera said in a clipped tone. “But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken.”  
  
I frowned at the giant’s spire. “Can’t we blow it up or something?”  
  
“Without me, you do not have the power,” Hera said. “You might as well try to destroy a mountain.”  
  
“Done that once today,” Jason said.  
  
“Just hurry up and let me out!” Hera demanded.  
  
Jason scratched his head. “Leo, can you do it?”  
  
“I don’t know.” I tried not to panic. “Besides, if she’s a goddess, why hasn’t she busted herself out?”  
  
Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. “Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you’re intelligent. Once trapped, a god’s power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg - _beg_ him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus.”  
  
“Sounds fair,” I said.  
  
Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. “I’ve watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you.”  
  
“But it’s not a machine. It’s like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and...” I felt dizzy. The line of their prophecy came back to him: The forge, dove and sun shall break the cage.“Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, Millie, I’m going to need your help. And we’re going to need time.”  
  
The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, my lips cracked and my breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in - but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Piper drew her dagger. Jason grabbed an ice-covered plank off the pool floor. Millie nocked an arrow on Thalia's bow. I reached into the tool belt, but I was so shaken up, all I produced was a tin of breath mints. I shoved them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and drew a hammer instead.  
  
One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see - an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.  
  
“Thalia!” Jason and Millie rushed forward, but Piper and I pulled them back. Millie tried to fight my grip, but I held my arms firmly around her waist until she got the message and stood still. The ground around Thalia’s statue was already webbed with ice. I feared if either of them touched her, they might freeze too.  
  
“Who did this?” Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. “I’ll kill you myself!”  
  
From somewhere behind the monsters, I heard a girl’s laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded them with those deep brown eyes I had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.  
  
“Bon soir, mes amis,” said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave me a frosty smile. “Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I’m afraid time is one tool you do not have.”  
  



	14. Chapter 14

**JASON**

After the fight on Mount Diablo, I didn’t think I could ever feel more afraid or devastated.  
  
Now my sister was frozen at my feet. I was surrounded by monsters. I’d broken my golden sword and replaced it with a piece of wood. I had approximately five minutes until the king of the giants busted out and destroyed us. I had already pulled my biggest ace, calling down Zeus’s lightning when I’d fought Enceladus, and I doubted I’d have the strength or the cooperation from above to do it again. Which meant my only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of girlfriend with a dagger, one daughter of Apollo who looked like she was getting weaker as the sun was disappearing, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints.  
  
On top of all this, my worst memories were flooding back. I knew for certain I’d done many dangerous things in my life, but I’d never been closer to death than I was right now.  
  
The enemy was beautiful. Khione smiled, her dark eyes glittering, as a dagger of ice grew in her hand.  
  
“What’ve you done?” I demanded.  
  
“Oh, so many things,” the snow goddess purred. “Your sister’s not dead, if that’s what you mean. She and her Hunters will make fine toys for our wolves. I thought we’d defrost them one at a time and hunt them down for amusement. Let them be the prey for once.”  
  
The wolves snarled appreciatively.  
  
“Yes, my dears.” Khione kept her eyes on me. “Your sister almost killed their king, you know. Lycaon’s off in a cave somewhere, no doubt licking his wounds, but his minions have joined us to take revenge for their master. And soon Porphyrion will arise, and we shall rule the world.”  
  
“Traitor!” Hera shouted. “You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren’t worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world.”  
  
Khione sighed. “Tiresome as ever, Queen Hera. I’ve been wanting to shut you up for millennia.”  
  
Khione waved her hand, and ice encased the prison, sealing in the spaces between the earthen tendrils.  
  
“That’s better,” the snow goddess said. “Now, demigods, about your death-”  
  
“You’re the one who tricked Hera into coming here,” I said. “You gave Zeus the idea of closing Olympus.”  
  
The wolves snarled, and the storm spirits whinnied, ready to attack, but Khione held up her hand. “Patience, my loves. If he wants to talk, what matter? The sun is setting, and time is on our side. Of course, Jason Grace. Like snow, my voice is quiet and gentle, and very cold. It’s easy for me to whisper to the other gods, especially when I am only confirming their own deepest fears. I also whispered in Aeolus’s ear that he should issue an order to kill demigods. It is a small service for Gaea, but I’m sure I will be well rewarded when her sons the giants come to power.”  
  
“You could’ve killed us in Quebec,” I said. “Why let us live?”  
  
Khione wrinkled her nose. “Messy business, killing you in my father’s house, especially when he insists on meeting all visitors. I did try, you remember. It would’ve been lovely if he’d agreed to turn you to ice. But once he’d given you guarantee of safe passage, I couldn’t openly disobey him. My father is an old fool. He lives in fear of Zeus and Aeolus, but he’s still powerful. Soon enough, when my new masters have awakened, I will depose Boreas and take the throne of the North Wind, but not just yet. Besides, my father did have a point. Your quest was suicidal. I fully expected you to fail.”  
  
“And to help us with that,” Leo said, “you knocked our dragon out of the sky over Detroit. Those frozen wires in his head - that was your fault. You’re gonna pay for that.”  
  
“You’re also the one who kept Enceladus informed about us,” Piper added. “We’ve been plagued by snowstorms the whole trip.”  
  
“Yes, I feel so close to all of you now!” Khione said. “Once you made it past Omaha, I decided to asked Lycaon to track you down so Jason could die here, at the Wolf House.” Khione smiled at me. “You see, Jason, your blood spilled on this sacred ground will taint it for generations. Your demigod brethren will be outraged, especially when they find the bodies of these two from Camp Half-Blood. They’ll believe the Greeks have conspired with giants. It will be... delicious.”  
  
Piper, Cath and Leo didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. But I knew. My memories were returning enough for me to realize how dangerously effective Khione’s plan could be.  
  
“You’ll set demigods against demigods,” I said.  
  
“It’s so easy!” said Khione. “As I told you, I only encourage what you would do anyway.”  
  
“But why?” Piper spread her hands. “Khione, you’ll tear the world apart. The giants will destroy everything. You don’t want that. Call off your monsters.”  
  
Khione hesitated, then laughed. “Your persuasive powers are improving, girl. But I am a goddess. You can’t charm-speak me. We wind gods are creatures of chaos! I’ll overthrow Aeolus and let the storms run free. If we destroy the mortal world, all the better! They never honored me, even in Greek times. Humans and their talk of global warming. Pah! I’ll cool them down quickly enough. When we retake the ancient places, I will cover the Acropolis in snow.”  
  
“The ancient places.” Leo’s eyes widened. “That’s what Enceladus meant about destroy the roots of the gods. He meant Greece.”  
  
“You could join me, son of Hephaestus,” Khione said. “I know you find me beautiful. It would be enough for my plan if these other two were to die. Reject that ridiculous destiny the Fates have given you. Live and be my champion, instead. Your skills would be quite useful.”  
  
Leo looked stunned. He glanced behind him, like Khione might be talking to somebody else. For a second I was worried. I figured Leo didn’t have beautiful goddesses make him offers like this every day.  
  
Then Leo laughed so hard, he doubled over. “Yeah, join you. Right. Until you get bored of me and turn me into a Leosicle? Lady, nobody messes with my dragon and gets away with it. I can’t believe I thought you were hot.”  
  
Khione’s face turned red. “Hot? You dare insult me? I am cold, Leo Valdez. Very, very cold.”  
  
She shot a blast of wintry sleet at the demigods, but Leo held up his hand. A wall of fire roared to life in front of them, and the snow dissolved in a steamy cloud.  
  
Leo grinned. “See, lady, that’s what happens to snow in Texas. It- freaking- melts.”  
  
Khione hissed. “Enough of this. Hera is failing. Porphyrion is rising. Kill the demigods. Let them be our king’s first meal!”  
  
I hefted my icy wooden plank - a stupid weapon to die fighting with - and the monsters charged.  
  
A wolf launched itself at me. I stepped back and swung the scrap wood into the beast’s snout with a satisfying crack. Maybe only silver could kill it, but a good old-fashioned board could still give it a Tylenol headache.  
  
I turned toward the sound of hooves and saw a storm spirit horse bearing down on him. I concentrated and summoned the wind. Just before the spirit could trample me, I launched myself into the air, grabbed the horse’s smoky neck, and pirouetted onto its back.  
  
The storm spirit reared. It tried to shake me, then tried to dissolve into mist to lose me; but somehow I stayed on. I willed the horse to remain in solid form, and the horse seemed unable to refuse. I could feel it fighting against me. I could sense its raging thoughts - complete chaos straining to break free. It took all my willpower to impose my own wishes and bring the horse under control. I thought about Aeolus, overseeing thousands and thousands of spirits like this, some much worse. No wonder the Master of the Winds had gone a little mad after centuries of that pressure. But I had only one spirit to master, and I had to win.  
  
“You’re mine now,” I said.  
  
The horse bucked, but I held fast. Its mane flickered as it circled around the empty pool, its hooves causing miniature thunderstorms - tempests - whenever they touched.  
  
“Tempest?” I said. “Is that your name?”  
  
The horse spirit shook its mane, evidently pleased to be recognized.  
  
“Fine,” I said. “Now, let’s fight.”  
  
I charged into battle, swinging my icy piece of wood, knocking aside wolves and plunging straight through other venti. Tempest was a strong spirit, and every time he plowed through one of his brethren, he discharged so much electricity, the other spirit vaporized into a harmless cloud of mist.  
  
Through the chaos, I caught glimpses of my friends. Piper was surrounded by Earthborn, but she seemed to be holding her own. She was so impressive-looking as she fought, almost glowing with beauty, that the Earthborn stared at her in awe, forgetting that they were supposed to kill her. They’d lower their clubs and watch dumbfounded as she smiled and charged them. They’d smile back - until she sliced them apart with her dagger, and they melted into mounds of mud.

Cath had a only a few silver arrows, but she was using the most of them: she drew the string of Thalia's bow back further than I thought possible, and shot two arrows at the same time - one goings straight through four wolves before it got lost in a tree, and the other slaying five wolves. I caught her eye, and she winked at me in a sisterly way before stabbing a storm spirit with a Celestial Bronze arrow as she ran past it.  
  
Meanwhile, Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should’ve been suicide, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame like he’d been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way.  
  
I realized that Leo was the only reason they were still alive. His fiery aura was heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione’s winter magic. Without him, we would’ve been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo went, ice melted off the stones. Even Thalia started to defrost a little when Leo stepped near her.  
  
Khione slowly backed away. Her expression went from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo got closer.

 

I was running out of enemies. Wolves lay in dazed heaps. Some slunk away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabbed the last Earthborn, who toppled to the ground in a pile of sludge. Cath ran over to her, shooting the last two wolves as she ran with her one remaining silver arrow. I rode Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapor. Then I wheeled around and saw Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow.  
  
“You’re too late,” Khione snarled. “He’s awake! And don’t think you’ve won anything here, demigods. Hera’s plan will never work. You’ll be at each other’s throats before you can ever stop us.”  
  
Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow - a white powdery image of herself. Leo’s hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.  
  
Piper was breathing hard, but she smiled up at me. “Nice horse.”  
  
Tempest reared on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves. A complete show-off.  
  
Then I heard a cracking sound behind him. The melting ice on Hera’s cage sloughed off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, “Oh, don’t mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!”  
  
I dismounted and told Tempest to stay put. The four of us jumped into the pool and ran to the spire.  
  
Leo frowned. “Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?”  
  
“No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!”  
  
As much as I disliked Hera, what I saw inside the cage alarmed me. Not only was Hera sinking, the ground was rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins. “The giant wakes!” Hera warned. “You only have seconds!”  
  
“On it,” Leo said. “Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage.”  
  
“What?” she said.  
  
“Talk to it. Use everything you’ve got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Millie, get a lullaby going - a strong one. Wear her out with it. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I-”  
  
“Right!” Piper cleared her throat and said, “Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I’m tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?”

Cath put her hands on the cage and started singing, but I couldn't identify any words or language.  
  
The more Piper talked, the more confident she sounded. Combined with the singing, I felt my own eyes getting heavy, and I had to force myself not to focus on her words. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little - becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fit in there, I had no idea. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. “I don’t have anywhere to plug it in!”  
  
The spirit horse Tempest jumped into the pit and whinnied.  
  
“Really?” I asked.  
  
Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse’s flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.  
  
“Sweet!” Leo grinned. “Your horse comes with AC outlets!”  
  
Our good mood didn’t last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant’s spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.  
  
I hadn’t thought anything could be scarier than Enceladus.  
  
I was wrong.  
  
Porphyrion was even taller, and even more ripped. He didn’t radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him - a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field.  
  
Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon’s legs; but his skin was the color of lima beans. His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons - daggers, axes, and full-size swords, some of them bent and bloody - maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.  
  
“Alive!” he bellowed. “Praise to Gaea!”  
  
I made a heroic little whimpering sound I hoped his friends couldn’t hear. I was very sure no demigod could solo this guy. Porphyrion could lift mountains. He could crush me with one finger.  
  
“Leo,” I said.  
  
“Huh?” Leo’s mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.  
  
“You guys keep working,” I said. “Get Hera free!”  
  
“What are you going to do?” Piper asked. “You can’t seriously-”  
  
“Entertain a giant?” I asked. “I’ve got no choice.”  
  
“Excellent!” the giant roared as I approached. “An appetizer! Who are you - Hermes? Ares?”  
  
I thought about going with that idea, but something told me not to.  
  
“I’m Jason Grace,” I said. “Son of Jupiter.”  
  
Those white eyes bored into me. Behind me, Leo’s circular saw whirred, and Piper talked to the cage in soothing tones, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. I had to drown out the singing in order to stay standing - it seemed like the girls' voices together could do almost anything.  
  
Porphyrion threw back his head and laughed. “Outstanding!” He looked up at the cloudy night sky. “So, Zeus, you sacrifice a son to me? The gesture is appreciated, but it will not save you.”  
  
The sky didn’t even rumble. No help from above. I was on my own.  
  
I dropped the makeshift club. My hands were covered in splinters, but that didn’t matter now. I had to buy the others some time, and I couldn’t do that without a proper weapon.  
  
It was time to act a whole lot more confident than I felt.  
  
“If you knew who I was,” I yelled up at the giant, “you’d be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because I’m going to send you right back to Tartarus.”  
  
The giant’s eyes narrowed. He planted one foot outside the pool and crouched to get a better look at his opponent. “So... we’ll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigod. I am Porphyrion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In olden times, I rose from Tartarus, the abyss of my father, to challenge the gods. To start the war, I stole Zeus’s queen.” He grinned at the goddess’s cage. “Hello, Hera.”  
  
“My husband destroyed you once, monster!” Hera said. “He’ll do it again!”  
  
“But he didn’t, my dear! Zeus wasn’t powerful enough to kill me. He had to rely on a puny demigod to help, and even then, we almost won. This time, we will complete what we started. Gaea is waking. She has provisioned us with many fine servants. Our armies will shake the earth - and we will destroy you at the roots.”  
  
“You wouldn’t dare,” Hera said, but she was weakening. I could hear it in her voice. Piper kept whispering to the cage, Cath kept singing, and Leo kept sawing, but the earth was still rising inside Hera’s prison, covering her up to her waist.  
  
“Oh, yes,” the giant said. “The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York. Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we, her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees - your eldest roots torn out and burned.”  
  
The giant frowned at Cath, Piper and Leo, as if he’d just noticed them working at the cage. I stepped forward and yelled to get back Porphyrion’s attention.  
  
“You said a demigod killed you,” I shouted. “How, if we’re so puny?”  
  
“Ha! You think I would explain it to you? I was created to be Zeus’s replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife - or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!”  
  
He rose to his full height and held out his hand. A twenty-foot spear shot from the earth. He grasped it, then stomped the ground with his dragon’s feet. The ruins shook. All around the courtyard, monsters started to regather—storm spirits, wolves, and Earthborn, all answering the giant king’s call.  
  
“Great,” Leo muttered. “We needed more enemies.”  
  
“Hurry,” Hera said.  
  
“I know!” Leo snapped.  
  
“Go to sleep, cage,” Piper said as Cath's singing became more insistent. “Nice, sleepy cage. Yes, I’m talking to a bunch of earthen tendrils. This isn’t weird at all.”  
  
Porphyrion raked his spear across the top of the ruins, destroying a chimney and spraying wood and stone across the courtyard. “So, child of Zeus! I have finished my boasting. Now it’s your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?”  
  
I looked at the ring of monsters, waiting impatiently for their master’s order to tear us to shreds. Leo’s circular saw kept whirring, Cath kept singing and Piper kept talking, but it seemed hopeless. Hera’s cage was almost completely filled with earth.  
  
“I’m the son of Jupiter!” I shouted, and just for effect, I summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. “I’m a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion.” I didn’t know quite what I was saying, but I rattled off the words like I’d said them many times before. I held out my arms, showing the tattoo of the eagle and SPQR, and to my surprise the giant seemed to recognize it.  
  
For a moment, Porphyrion actually looked uneasy.  
  
“I slew the Trojan sea monster,” I continued. “I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I’m going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves.”  
  
“Wow, dude,” Leo muttered. “You been eating red meat?”  
  
I launched myself at the giant, determined to tear him apart.  
  
The idea of fighting a forty-foot-tall immortal bare handed was so ridiculous, even the giant seemed surprised. Half flying, half leaping, I landed on the giant’s scaly reptilian knee and climbed up the giant’s arm before Porphyrion even realized what had happened.  
  
“You dare?” the giant bellowed.  
  
I reached his shoulders and ripped a sword out of the giant’s weapon-filled braids. I yelled, “For Rome!” and drove the sword into the nearest convenient target—the giant’s massive ear.  
  
Lightning streaked out of the sky and blasted the sword, throwing me free. I rolled when I hit the ground. When I looked up, the giant was staggering. His hair was on fire, and the side of his face was blackened from lightning. The sword had splintered in his ear. Golden ichor ran down his jaw. The other weapons were sparking and smoldering in his braids.  
  
Porphyrion almost fell. The circle of monsters let out a collective growl and moved forward - wolves and ogres fixing their eyes on me.  
  
“No!” Porphyrion yelled. He regained his balance and glared at the demigod. “I will kill him myself.”  
  
The giant raised his spear and it began to glow. “You want to play with lightning, boy? You forget. I am the bane of Zeus. I was created to destroy your father, which means I know exactly what will kill you.”

Something in Porphyrion’s voice told Jason he wasn’t bluffing.  
  
My friends and I had had a good run. The four of us had done amazing things. Yeah, even heroic things. But as the giant raised his spear, I knew there was no way I could deflect this strike.  
  
This was the end.  
  
“Got it!” Leo yelled.

Cath held a note so loud and long I had no idea where she got the air from.  
  
“Sleep!” Piper said, so forcefully, the nearest wolves fell to the ground and began snoring.  
  
The stone and wood cage crumbled. Leo had sawed through the base of the thickest tendril and apparently cut off the cage’s connection to Gaea. The tendrils turned to dust. The mud around Hera disintegrated. The goddess grew in size, glowing with power.  
  
“Yes!” the goddess said. She threw off her black robes to reveal a white gown, her arms bedecked with golden jewelry. Her face was both terrible and beautiful, and a golden crown glowed in her long black hair. “Now I shall have my revenge!”  
  
The giant Porphyrion backed away. He said nothing, but he gave me one last look of hatred. His message was clear: _Another time_. Then he slammed his spear against the earth, and the giant disappeared into the ground like he’d dropped down a chute.  
  
Around the courtyard, monsters began to panic and retreat, but there was no escape for them.  
  
Hera glowed brighter. She shouted, “Cover your eyes, my heroes!”  
  
But I was too much in shock. I understood too late.  
  
I watched as Hera turned into a supernova, exploding in a ring of force that vaporized every monster instantly. I fell, light searing into my mind, and my last thought was that my body was burning.


	15. Chapter 15

**PIPER**

“Jason!”  
  
I kept calling his name as I held him, though I’d almost lost hope. Cath was singing, looking like she was about to pass out herself, and I wasn't actually sure if she was singing him a healing song or a mourning song.

He’d been unconscious for two minutes now. His body was steaming, his eyes rolled back in his head. I couldn’t tell if he was even breathing.  
  
“It’s no use, child.” Hera stood over us in her simple black robes and shawl.  
  
I hadn’t seen the goddess go nuclear. Thankfully I’d closed my eyes, but I could see the aftereffects. Every vestige of winter was gone from the valley. No signs of battle, either. The monsters had been vaporized. The ruins had been restored to what they were before - still ruins, but with no evidence that they’d been overrun by a horde of wolves, storm spirits, and six-armed ogres.  
  
Even the Hunters had been revived. Most waited at a respectful distance in the meadow, but Thalia knelt by my side, her hand on Jason’s forehead.  
  
Thalia glared up at the goddess. “This is your fault. Do something!”  
  
“Do not address me that way, girl. I am the queen-”  
  
“Fix him!”  
  
Hera’s eyes flickered with power. “I did warn him. I would never intentionally hurt the boy. He was to be my champion. I told them to close their eyes before I revealed my true form.”  
  
“Um...” Leo frowned as he supported Cath - she could barely keep herself upright, though Hera's presence seemed to be helping. “True form is bad, right? So why did you do it?”  
  
“I unleashed my power to help you, fool!” Hera cried. “I became pure energy so I could disintegrate the monsters, restore this place, and even save these miserable Hunters from the ice.”  
  
“But mortals can’t look upon you in that form!” Thalia shouted. “You’ve killed him!”  
  
Leo shook his head in dismay. “That’s what our prophecy meant. _Death unleash, through Hera’s rage_. Come on, lady. You’re a goddess. Do some voodoo magic on him! Bring him back.”  
  
I half heard their conversation, but mostly I was focused on Jason’s face. “He’s breathing!” I announced.  
  
“Impossible,” Hera said. “I wish it were true, child, but no mortal has ever-”  
  
“Jason,” I called, putting every bit of my willpower into his name. I could not lose him, which Cath seemed to understand as she sang higher and louder. “Listen to me. You can do this. Come back. You’re going to be fine.”  
  
Nothing happened. Had I imagined his breath stirring?  
  
“Healing is not a power of Aphrodite, and bringing back the dead isn't one of Apollo,” Hera said regretfully. “Even I cannot fix this, girl. His mortal spirit-”  
  
“Jason,” I said again, and I imagined my voice resonating through the earth, all the way down to the Underworld. “Wake up.”  
  
He gasped, and his eyes flew open. For a moment they were full of light - glowing pure gold. Then the light faded and his eyes were normal again. “What- what happened?”  
  
“Impossible!” Hera said.  
  
I wrapped him in a hug until he groaned, “Crushing me.”  
  
“Sorry,” I said, so relieved, I laughed while wiping a tear from her eye.  
  
Thalia gripped her brother’s hand. Leo helped Cath crawl over, and she weakly put her hand on her shoulder. “How do you feel?” She croaked, a stark contrast to just how powerful her voice had seemed moments ago. I wondered if I sounded like that, but then again, my powers didn't really tire me out for some reason.  
  
“Hot,” he muttered. “Mouth is dry. And I saw something... really terrible.”  
  
“That was Hera,” Thalia grumbled. “Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon.”  
  
“That’s it, Thalia Grace,” said the goddess. “I will turn you into an aardvark, so help me-”  
  
“Stop it, you two,” I said. Amazingly, they both shut up.  
  
I helped Jason to his feet and gave him the last nectar from their supplies.  
  
“Now...” I faced Thalia and Hera. “Hera - Your Majesty - we couldn’t have rescued you without the Hunters. And Thalia, you never would’ve seen Jason again - I wouldn’t have met him - if it weren’t for Hera. You two make nice, because we’ve got bigger problems.”  
  
They both glared at me, and for three long seconds, I wasn’t sure which one of them was going to kill me first.  
  
Finally Thalia grunted. “You’ve got spirit, Piper.” She pulled a silver card from her parka and tucked it into the pocket of my snowboarding jacket. “You ever want to be a Hunter, call me. We could use you.”  
  
Hera crossed her arms. “Fortunately for this Hunter, you have a point, daughter of Aphrodite.” She assessed me, as if seeing her clearly for the time. “You wondered, Piper, why I chose you for this quest, why I didn’t reveal your secret in the beginning, even when I knew Enceladus was using you. I must admit, until this moment I was not sure. Something told me you would be vital to the quest. Now I see I was right. You’re even stronger than I realized. And you are correct about the dangers to come. We must work together.”  
  
My face felt warm. I wasn’t sure how to respond to Hera’s compliment, but Leo stepped in.  
  
“Yeah,” he said, “I don’t suppose that Porphyrion guy just melted and died, huh?”  
  
“No,” Hera agreed. “By saving me, and saving this place, you prevented Gaea from waking. You have bought us some time. But Porphyrion has risen. He simply knew better than to stay here, especially since he has not yet regained his full power. Giants can only be killed by a combination of god and demigod, working together. Once you freed me-”  
  
“He ran away,” Jason said. “But to where?”  
  
Hera didn’t answer, but a sense of dread washed over me. I remembered what Porphyrion had said about killing the Olympians by pulling up their roots. Greece. I looked at Thalia’s grim expression, and guessed the Hunter had come to the same conclusion.  
  
“I need to find Annabeth,” Thalia said. “She has to know what’s happened here.”  
  
“Thalia...” Jason gripped her hand. “We never got to talk about this place, or-”  
  
“I know.” Her expression softened. “I lost you here once. I don’t want to leave you again. But we’ll meet soon. I’ll rendezvous with you back at Camp Half-Blood.” She glanced at Hera. “You’ll see them there safely? It’s the least you can do.”  
  
“It’s not your place to tell me-”  
  
“Queen Hera,” I interceded.  
  
The goddess sighed. “Fine. Yes. Just off with you, Hunter!”  
  
Thalia gave Jason a hug, squeezed Cath's, and said her good-byes. When the Hunters were gone, the courtyard seemed strangely quiet. The dry reflecting pool showed no sign of the earthen tendrils that had brought back the giant king or imprisoned Hera. The night sky was clear and starry. The wind rustled in the redwoods. I thought about that night in Oklahoma when my dad and I had slept in Grandpa Tom’s front yard. I thought about the night on the Wilderness School dorm roof, when Jason had kissed her - in her Mist-altered memories, anyway.  
  
“Jason, what happened to you here?” I asked. “I mean - I know your mom abandoned you here. But you said it was sacred ground for demigods. Why? What happened after you were on your own?”  
  
Jason shook his head uneasily. “It’s still murky. The wolves...”  
  
“You were given a destiny,” Hera said. “You were given into my service.”  
  
Jason scowled. “Because you forced my mom to do that. You couldn’t stand knowing Zeus had two children with my mom. Knowing that he’d fallen for her twice. I was the price you demanded for leaving the rest of my family alone. ”  
  
“It was the right choice for you as well, Jason,” Hera insisted. “The second time your mother managed to snare Zeus’s affections, it was because she imagined him in a different aspect - the aspect of Jupiter. Never before had this happened - two children, Greek and Roman, born into the same family. You had to be separated from Thalia. This is where all demigods of your kind start their journey.”  
  
“Of his kind?” Cath asked.  
  
“She means Roman,” Jason said. “Demigods are left here. We meet the she-wolf goddess, Lupa, the same immortal wolf that raised Romulus and Remus.”  
  
Hera nodded. “And if you are strong enough, you live.”  
  
“But...” Leo looked mystified. “What happened after that? I mean, Jason never made it to camp.”  
  
“Not to Camp Half-Blood, no,” Hera agreed.  
  
I felt as if the sky were spiraling above me, making me dizzy. “You went somewhere else. That’s where you’ve been all these years. Somewhere else for demigods- but where?”  
  
Jason turned to the goddess. “The memories are coming back, but not the location. You’re not going to tell me, are you?”  
  
“No,” Hera said. “That is part of your destiny, Jason. You must find your own way back. But when you do... you will unite two great powers. You will give us hope against the giants, and more importantly - against Gaea herself.”  
  
“You want us to help you,” Jason said, “but you’re holding back information.”  
  
“Giving you answers would make those answers invalid,” Hera said. “That is the way of the Fates. You must forge your own path for it to mean anything. Already, you four have surprised me. I would not have thought it possible...”  
  
The goddess shook her head. “Suffice to say, you have performed well, demigods. But this is only the beginning. Now you must return to Camp Half-Blood, where you will begin planning for the next phase.”  
  
“Which you won’t tell us about,” Jason grumped. “And I suppose you destroyed my nice storm spirit horse, so we’ll have to walk home?”

Hera waved aside the question. “Storm spirits are creatures of chaos. I did not destroy that one, though I have no idea where he went, or whether you’ll see him again. But there is an easier way home for you. As you have done me a great service, so I can help you - at least this once. Farewell, demigods, for now.”  
  
The world turned upside down, and I almost blacked out.  
  
When I could see straight again, we were back at camp, in the dining pavilion, in the middle of dinner. We were standing on the Aphrodite cabin’s table, and I had one foot in Drew’s pizza. Sixty campers rose at once, gawking at them in astonishment.  
  
Whatever Hera had done to shoot them across the country, it wasn’t good for my stomach. I could barely control my nausea. Leo wasn’t so lucky. He jumped off the table, ran to the nearest bronze brazier, and threw up in it - which was probably not a great burnt offering for the gods.  
  
“Jason?” Chiron trotted forward. No doubt the old centaur had seen thousands of years’ worth of weird stuff, but even he looked totally flabbergasted. “What- How- ?”  
  
The Aphrodite campers stared up at me with their mouths open. I figured we must look awful.  
  
“Hi,” I said, as casually as I could. “We’re back.”

Silence fell for a few moments, before Will stood up from the Apollo table. He rushed towards Cath, who was still swaying just a little, and she jumped off to hug.

"Gods, Missy, you couldn't have shot me a quick Iris-Message to let me know you're alive?" I heard him say when they separated.

We all got off the table, and Cath and Will both placed one of Leo's arms over their shoulders; he still seemed a little nauseous.

We told our story a million times that night, but Chiron finally saw how tired we were and ordered us to go to bed.  
  
It felt so good to sleep on a real mattress, and I was so exhausted, she crashed immediately, which spared me any worry about what it would be like returning to the Aphrodite cabin.  
  
The next morning I woke in her bunk, feeling reinvigorated. The sun came through the windows along with a pleasant breeze. It might’ve been spring instead of winter. Birds sang. Monsters howled in the woods. Breakfast smells wafted from the dining pavilion - bacon, pancakes, and all sorts of wonderful things.  
  
Drew and her gang were frowning down at me, their arms crossed.  
  
“Morning.” I sat up and smiled. “Beautiful day.”  
  
“You’re going to make us late for breakfast,” Drew said, “which means you get to clean the cabin for inspection.”  
  
A week ago, I would’ve either punched Drew in the face, or hidden back under her covers. Now I thought about the Cyclopes in Detroit, Medea in Chicago, Midas turning me to gold in Omaha. Looking at Drew, who used to bother me, I laughed.  
  
Drew’s smug expression crumbled. She backed up, then remembered she was supposed to be angry. “What are you-”  
  
“Challenging you,” I said. “How about noon in the arena? You can choose the weapons.”  
  
I got out of bed, stretched leisurely, and beamed at my cabinmates. I spotted Mitchell and Lacy, who’d helped me pack for the quest. They were smiling tentatively, their eyes flitting from me to Drew like this might be a very interesting tennis game.  
  
“I missed you guys!” I announced. “We’re going to have a great time when I’m senior counselor.”  
  
Drew turned bug juice red. Even her closest lieutenants looked a little nervous. This wasn’t in their script.  
  
“You-” Drew spluttered. “You ugly little witch! I’ve been here the longest. You can’t just-”  
  
“Challenge you?” I said. “Sure, I can. Camp rules: I’ve been claimed by Aphrodite. I’ve completed a quest, which is one more than you’ve completed. If I feel I can do a better job, I can challenge you. Unless you just want to step down. Did I get all that right, Mitchell?”  
  
“Just right, Piper.” Mitchell was grinning. Lacy was bouncing up and down like she was trying to achieve liftoff.  
  
A few of the other kids started to grin, as if they were enjoying the different colors Drew’s face was turning.  
  
“Step down?” Drew shrieked. “You’re crazy!”  
  
I shrugged. Then fast as a viper I pulled Katoptris from under my pillow, unsheathed the dagger, and thrust the point under Drew’s chin. Everybody else backed up fast. One guy crashed into a makeup table and sent up a plume of pink powder.  
  
“A duel, then,” I said cheerfully. “If you don’t want to wait until noon, now is fine. You’ve turned this cabin into a dictatorship, Drew. Silena Beauregard knew better than that. Aphrodite is about love and beauty. Being loving. Spreading beauty. Good friends. Good times. Good deeds. Not just looking good. Silena made mistakes, but in the end she stood by her friends. That’s why she was a hero. I’m going to set things right, and I’ve got a feeling Mom will be on my side. Want to find out?”  
  
Drew went cross-eyed looking down the blade of my dagger.  
  
A second passed. Then two. I didn’t care. I was absolutely happy and confident. It must’ve shown in my smile.  
  
“I... step down,” Drew grumbled. “But if you think I’m ever going to forget this, McLean-”  
  
“Oh, I hope you won’t,” I said. “Now, run along to the dining pavilion, and explain to Chiron why we’re late. There’s been a change of leadership.”  
  
Drew backed to the door. Even her closest lieutenants didn’t follow her. She was about to leave when I said, “Oh, and Drew, honey?”  
  
The former counselor looked back reluctantly.  
  
“In case you think I’m not a true daughter of Aphrodite,” Piper said, “don’t even look at Jason Grace. He may not know it yet, but he’s mine. If you even try to make a move, I will load you into a catapult and shoot you across Long Island Sound.”  
  
Drew turned around so fast, she ran into the doorframe. Then she was gone.  
  
The cabin was silent. The other campers stared at me. This was the part I was unsure of. I didn’t want to rule by fear. I wasn’t like Drew, but I didn’t know if they’d accept me.  
  
Then, spontaneously, the Aphrodite campers cheered so loudly, they must’ve been heard all across camp. They herded me out of the cabin, raised me on their shoulders, and carried me all the way to the dining pavilion - still in pajamas, hair still a mess, but I didn’t care. I’d never felt better.  
  
By afternoon, I had changed into comfortable camp clothes and led the Aphrodite cabin through their morning activities. I was ready for free time.  
  
Some of the buzz of her victory had faded because I had an appointment at the Big House.  
  
Chiron met her on the front porch in human form, compacted into his wheelchair. “Come inside, my dear. The video conference is ready.”  
  
The only computer at camp was in Chiron’s office, and the whole room was shielded in bronze plating.  
  
“Demigods and technology don’t mix,” Chiron explained. “Phone calls, texting, even browsing the Internet - all these things can attract monsters. Why, just this fall at a school in Cincinnati, we had to rescue a young hero who Googled the gorgons and got a little more than he bargained for, but never mind that. Here at camp, you’re protected. Still... we try to be cautious. You’ll only be able to talk for a few minutes.”  
  
“Got it,” I said. “Thank you, Chiron.”  
  
He smiled and wheeled himself out of the office. I hesitated before clicking the call button. Chiron’s office had a cluttered, cozy feel. One wall was covered with T-shirts from different conventions - Party Ponies ’09 Vegas, Party Ponies ’10 Honolulu, et cetera. I didn’t know who the Party Ponies were, but judging from the stains, scorch marks, and weapon holes in the T-shirts, they must’ve had some pretty wild meetings. On the shelf over Chiron’s desk sat an old-fashioned boom box with cassette tapes labeled “Dean Martin” and “Frank Sinatra” and “Greatest Hits of the 40s.” Chiron was so old, I wondered if that meant 1940s, 1840s, or maybe just A.D. 40.  
  
But most of the office’s wall space was plastered with photos of demigods, like a hall of fame. One of the newer shots showed a teenage guy with dark hair and green eyes. Since he stood arm in arm with Annabeth, I assumed the guy must be Percy Jackson. In some of the older photos, I recognized famous people: businessmen, athletes, even some actors that my dad knew.  
  
“Unbelievable,” I muttered.  
  
I wondered if my photo would go on that wall someday. For the first time, I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself. Demigods had been around for centuries. Whatever I did, I did for all of them.  
  
I took a deep breath and made the call. The video screen popped up.  
  
Gleeson Hedge grinned at me from her dad’s office. “Seen the news?”  
  
“Kind of hard to miss,” I said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”  
  
Chiron had shown her a newspaper at lunch. Her dad’s mysterious return from nowhere had made the front page. His personal assistant Jane had been fired for covering up his disappearance and failing to notify the police. A new staff had been hired and personally vetted by Tristan McLean’s “life coach,” Gleeson Hedge. According to the paper, Mr. McLean claimed to have no memory of the last week, and the media was totally eating up the story. Some thought it was a clever marketing ploy for a movie - maybe McLean was going to play an amnesiac? Some thought he’d been kidnapped by terrorists, or rabid fans, or had heroically escaped from ransom seekers using his incredible King of Sparta fighting skills. Whatever the truth, Tristan McLean was more famous than ever.  
  
“It’s going great,” Hedge promised. “But don’t worry. We’re going to keep him out of the public eye for the next month or so until things cool down. Your dad’s got more important things to do - like resting, and talking to his daughter.”  
  
“Don’t get too comfortable out there in Hollywood, Gleeson,” I said.  
  
Hedge snorted. “You kidding? These people make Aeolus look sane. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but your dad’s gotta get back on his feet first. He’s a good guy. Oh, and by the way, I took care of that other little matter. The Park Service in the Bay Area just got an anonymous gift of a new helicopter. And that ranger pilot who helped us? She’s got a very lucrative offer to fly for Mr. McLean.”  
  
“Thanks, Gleeson,” I said. “For everything.”  
  
“Yeah, well. I don’t try to be awesome. It just comes natural. Speaking of Aeolus’s place, meet your dad’s new assistant.”  
  
Hedge was nudged out of the way, and a pretty young lady grinned into the camera.  
  
“Mellie?” I stared, but it was definitely her: the aura who’d helped them escape from Aeolus’s fortress. “You’re working for my dad now?”  
  
“Isn’t it great?”  
  
“Does he know you’re a - you know - wind spirit?”  
  
“Oh, no. But I love this job. It’s - um - a breeze.”  
  
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m glad. That’s awesome. But where-”  
  
“Just a sec.” Mellie kissed Gleeson on the cheek. “Come on, you old goat. Stop hogging the screen.”

“What?” Hedge demanded. But Mellie steered him away and called, “Mr. McLean? She’s on!”  
  
A second later, my dad appeared.  
  
He broke into a huge grin. “Pipes!”  
  
He looked great - back to normal, with his sparkling brown eyes, his half-day beard, his confident smile, and his newly trimmed hair like he was ready to shoot a scene. I was relieved, but I also felt a little sad. Back to normal wasn’t necessarily what she’d wanted.  
  
In my mind, I started the clock. On a normal call like this, on a workday, I hardly ever got my dad’s attention for longer than thirty seconds.  
  
“Hey,” I said weakly. “You feeling okay?”  
  
“Honey, I’m so sorry to worry you with this disappearance business. I don’t know...” His smile wavered, and she could tell he was trying to remember - grasping for a memory that should have been there, but wasn’t. “I’m not sure what happened, honestly. But I’m fine. Coach Hedge has been a godsend.”  
  
“A godsend,” I repeated. Funny choice of words.  
  
“He told me about your new school,” Dad said. “I’m sorry the Wilderness School didn’t work out, but you were right. Jane was wrong. I was a fool to listen to her.”  
  
Ten seconds left, maybe. But at least my dad sounded sincere, like he really did feel remorseful.  
  
“You don’t remember anything?” I said, a bit wistfully.  
  
“Of course I do,” he said.  
  
A chill went down my neck. “You do?”  
  
“I remember that I love you,” he said. “And I’m proud of you. Are you happy at your new school?”  
  
I blinked. I wasn’t going to cry now. After all I’d been through, that would be ridiculous. “Yeah, Dad. It’s more like a camp, not a school, but... Yeah, I think I’ll be happy here.”  
  
“Call me as often as you can,” he said. “And come home for Christmas. And Pipes...”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
He touched the screen as if trying to reach through with his hand. “You’re a wonderful young lady. I don’t tell you that often enough. You remind me so much of your mother. She’d be proud. And Grandpa Tom” - he chuckled - “he always said you’d be the most powerful voice in our family. You’re going to outshine me some day, you know. They’re going to remember me as Piper McLean’s father, and that’s the best legacy I can imagine.”  
  
I tried to answer, but I was afraid to break down. I just touched his fingers on the screen and nodded.  
  
Mellie said something in the background, and my dad sighed. “Studio calling. I’m sorry, honey.” And he did sound genuinely annoyed to go.  
  
“It’s okay, Dad,” I managed. “Love you.”  
  
He winked. Then the video call went black.  
  
Forty-five seconds? Maybe a full minute.  
  
I smiled. A small improvement, but it was progress.  
  
At the commons area, I found Jason relaxing on a bench, a basketball between his feet. He was sweaty from working out, but he looked great in his orange tank top and shorts. His various scars and bruises from the quest were healing, thanks to some medical attention from the Apollo cabin - mainly Will who was fussing over all of us, especially Cath. His arms and legs were well muscled and tan - distracting as always. His close-cropped blond hair caught the afternoon light so it looked like it was turning to gold, Midas style.  
  
“Hey,” he said. “How did it go?”  
  
It took me a second to focus on his question. “Hmm? Oh, yeah. Fine.”  
  
I sat next to him and we watched the campers going back and forth. A couple of Demeter girls were playing tricks on two of the Apollo guys - making grass grow around their ankles as they shot baskets. Over at the camp store, the Hermes kids were putting up a sign that read: _flying shoes, slightly used, 50% off today!_ Ares kids were lining their cabin with fresh barbed wire. The Hypnos cabin was snoring away. A normal day at camp.  
  
Meanwhile, the Aphrodite kids were watching us, and trying to pretend they weren’t. I was pretty sure I saw money change hands, like they were placing bets on a kiss.  
  
“Get any sleep?” I asked him.  
  
He looked at me as if she’d been reading his thoughts. “Not much. Dreams.”  
  
“About your past?”  
  
He nodded.  
  
I didn’t push him. If he wanted to talk, that was fine, but I knew him better than to press the subject. I didn’t even worry that her knowledge of him was mostly based on three months of false memories. _You can sense possibilities_ , her mother had said. And I was determined to make those possibilities a reality.  
  
Jason spun his basketball. “It’s not good news,” he warned. “My memories aren’t good for- for any of us.”  
  
I was pretty sure he’d been about to say for us - as in the two of us, and I wondered if he’d remembered a girl from his past. But I didn’t let it bother her. Not on a sunny winter day like this, with Jason next to her.  
  
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised.  
  
He looked at me hesitantly, like he wanted very much to believe me. “Annabeth and Rachel are coming in for the meeting tonight. I should probably wait until then to explain...”  
  
“Okay.” I plucked a blade of grass by my foot. I knew there were dangerous things in store for both of them. I would have to compete with Jason’s past, and thweey might not even survive our war against the giants. But right now, we were both alive, and I was determined to enjoy this moment.  
  
Jason studied me warily. His forearm tattoo was faint blue in the sunlight. “You’re in a good mood. How can you be so sure things will work out?”  
  
“Because you’re going to lead us,” I said simply. “I’d follow you anywhere.”  
  
Jason blinked. Then slowly, he smiled. “Dangerous thing to say.”  
  
“I’m a dangerous girl.”  
  
“That, I believe.”  
  
He got up and brushed off his shorts. He offered me a hand. “Leo says he’s got something to show us out in the woods. You coming?”  
  
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I took his hand and stood up.  
  
For a moment, we kept holding hands. Jason tilted his head. “We should get going.”  
  
“Yep,” I said. “Just a sec.”  
  
I let go of his hand, and took a card from her pocket - the silver calling card that Thalia had given me for the Hunters of Artemis. I dropped it into a nearby eternal fire and watched it burn. There would be no breaking hearts in Aphrodite cabin from now on. That was one rite of passage they didn’t need.  
  
Across the green, my cabinmates looking disappointed that they hadn’t witnessed a kiss. They started cashing in their bets.  
  
But that was all right. I was patient, and I could see lots of good possibilities.  
  
“Let’s go,” I told Jason. “We’ve got adventures to plan.”

 


	16. Chapter 16

**LEO**

I hadn't felt this jumpy since I offered tofu burgers to the werewolves. When I got to the limestone cliff in the forest, I turned to the group and smiled nervously. “Here we go.”  
  
I willed my hand to catch fire, and set it against the door.  
  
My cabinmates gasped.  
  
“Leo!” Nyssa cried. “You’re a fire user!”  
  
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “I know.”  
  
Jake Mason, who was out of his body cast but still on crutches, said, “Holy Hephaestus. That means- it’s so rare that-”  
  
The massive stone door swung open, and everyone’s mouth dropped. My flaming hand seemed insignificant now. Even Millie, Piper and Jason looked stunned, and they’d seen enough amazing things lately.  
  
Only Chiron didn’t look surprised. The centaur knit his bushy eyebrows and stroked his beard, as if the group was about to walk through a minefield.  
  
That made me even more nervous, but I couldn’t change my mind now. My instincts told me I was meant to share this place - at least with the Hephaestus cabin - and I couldn’t hide it from Chiron or my three best friends.  
  
“Welcome to Bunker Nine,” I said, as confidently as I could. “C’mon in.”  
  
The group was silent as they toured the facility. Everything was just as I had left it - giant machines, worktables, old maps and schematics. Only one thing had changed. Festus’s head was sitting on the central table, still battered and scorched from his final crash in Omaha.  
  
I went over to it, a bitter taste in my mouth, and stroked the dragon’s forehead. “I’m sorry, Festus. But I won’t forget you.”  
  
Jason put a hand on my shoulder, and Millie wrapped one arm around my waist to give me a gentle side-hug while I just tried not to blush. “Hephaestus brought it here for you?”  
  
I nodded.  
  
“But you can’t repair him,” Jason guessed.  
  
“No way,” I said. “But the head is going to be reused. Festus will be going with us.”  
  
Piper came over and frowned. “What do you mean?”  
  
Before I could answer, Nyssa cried out, “Guys, look at this!”  
  
She was standing at one of the worktables, flipping through a sketchbook - diagrams for hundreds of different machines and weapons.  
  
“I’ve never seen anything like these,” Nyssa said. “There are more amazing ideas here than in Daedalus’s workshop. It would take a century just to prototype them all.”  
  
“Who built this place?” Jake Mason said. “And why?”  
  
Chiron stayed silent, but I focused on the wall map I’d seen during my first visit. It showed Camp Half-Blood with a line of triremes in the Sound, catapults mounted in the hills around the valley, and spots marked for traps, trenches, and ambush sites.  
  
“It’s a wartime command center,” I said. “The camp was attacked once, wasn’t it?”  
  
“In the Titan War?” Piper asked.  
  
Nyssa shook her head. “No. Besides, that map looks really old. The date... does that say 1864?”  
  
We all turned to Chiron.  
  
The centaur’s tail swished fretfully. “This camp has been attacked many times,” he admitted. “That map is from the last Civil War.”  
  
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one confused. The other Hephaestus campers looked at each other and frowned.  
  
“Civil War...” Piper said. “You mean the American Civil War, like a hundred and fifty years ago?”  
  
“Yes and no,” Chiron said. “The two conflicts—mortal and demigod—mirrored each other, as they usually do in Western history. Look at any civil war or revolution from the fall of Rome onward, and it marks a time when demigods also fought one another. But that Civil War was particularly horrible. For American mortals, it is still their bloodiest conflict of all time—worse than their casualties in the two World Wars. For demigods, it was equally devastating. Even back then, this valley was Camp Half-Blood. There was a horrible battle in these woods lasting for days, with terrible losses on both sides.”  
  
“Both sides,” I said. “You mean the camp split apart?”  
  
“No,” Jason spoke up. “He means two different groups. Camp Half-Blood was one side in the war.”

I wasn’t sure he wanted an answer, but I asked, “Who was the other?”

Chiron glanced up at the tattered bunker 9 banner, as if remembering the day it was raised.  
  
“The answer is dangerous,” he warned. “It is something I swore upon the River Styx never to speak of. After the American Civil War, the gods were so horrified by the toll it took on their children, that they swore it would never happen again. The two groups were separated. The gods bent all their will, wove the Mist as tightly as they could, to make sure the enemies never remembered each other, never met on their quests, so that bloodshed could be avoided. This map is from the final dark days of 1864, the last time the two groups fought. We’ve had several close calls since then. The nineteen sixties were particularly dicey. But we’ve managed to avoid another civil war - at least so far. Just as Leo guessed, this bunker was a command center for the Hephaestus cabin. In the last century, it has been reopened a few times, usually as a hiding place in times of great unrest. But coming here is dangerous. It stirs old memories, awakens the old feuds. Even when the Titans threatened last year, I did not think it worth the risk to use this place.”  
  
Suddenly my sense of triumph turned to guilt. “Hey, look, this place found me. It was meant to happen. It’s a good thing.”  
  
“I hope you’re right,” Chiron said.  
  
“I am!” I pulled the old drawing out of my pocket and spread it on the table for everyone to see.  
  
“There,” I said proudly. “Aeolus returned that to me. I drew it when I was five. That’s my destiny.”  
  
Nyssa frowned. “Leo, it’s a crayon drawing of a boat.”  
  
“Look.” I pointed at the largest schematic on the bulletin board - the blueprint showing a Greek trireme. Slowly, my cabinmates’ eyes widened as they compared the two designs. The number of masts and oars, even the decorations on the shields and sails were exactly the same as on my drawing.  
  
“That’s impossible,” Nyssa said. “That blueprint has to be a century old at least.”  
  
“‘Prophecy - Unclear - Flight,’” Jake Mason read from the notes on the blueprint. “It’s a diagram for a flying ship. Look, that’s the landing gear. And weaponry - Holy Hephaestus: rotating ballista, mounted crossbows, Celestial bronze plating. That thing would be one spankin’ hot war machine. Was it ever made?”  
  
“Not yet,” I said. “Look at the masthead.”  
  
There was no doubt - the figure at the front of the ship was the head of a dragon. A very particular dragon.  
  
“Festus,” Millie said. Everyone turned and looked at the dragon’s head sitting on the table.  
  
“That's right, Sunshine. He’s meant to be our masthead,” I said, grinning as she stuck out her tongue at the nickname. “Our good luck charm, our eyes at sea. I’m supposed to build this ship. I’m gonna call it the Argo II. And guys, I’ll need your help.”  
  
“The Argo II.” Piper smiled. “After Jason’s ship.”  
  
Jason looked a little uncomfortable, but he nodded. “Leo’s right. That ship is just what we need for our journey.”  
  
“What journey?” Nyssa said. “You just got back!”  
  
Piper ran her fingers over the old crayon drawing. “We’ve got to confront Porphyrion, the giant king. He said he would destroy the gods at their roots.”  
  
“Indeed,” Chiron said. “Much of Rachel’s Great Prophecy is still a mystery to me, but one thing is clear. You four - Jason, Piper, Emily-Catherine and Leo - are among the eight demigods who must take on that quest. You must confront the giants in their homeland, where they are strongest. You must stop them before they can wake Gaea fully, before they destroy Mount Olympus.”  
  
“Um...” Nyssa shifted. “You don’t mean Manhattan, do you?”  
  
“No,” I said. “The original Mount Olympus. We have to sail to Greece.”  
  
It took a few minutes for that to settle in. Then the other Hephaestus campers started asking questions all at once. _Who were the other four demigods? How long would it take to build the boat? Why didn’t everyone get to go to Greece?_  
  
“Heroes!” Chiron struck his hoof on the floor. “All the details are not clear yet, but Leo is correct. He will need your help to build the Argo II. It is perhaps the greatest project Cabin Nine has even undertaken, even greater than the bronze dragon.”  
  
“It’ll take a year at least,” Nyssa guessed. “Do we have that much time?”  
  
“You have six months at most,” Chiron said. “You should sail by summer solstice, when the gods’ power is strongest. Besides, we evidently cannot trust the wind gods, and the summer winds are the least powerful and easiest to navigate. You dare not sail any later, or you may be too late to stop the giants. You must avoid ground travel, using only air and sea, so this vehicle is perfect. Jason being the son of the sky god...”  
  
His voice trailed off, but I figured Chiron was thinking about his missing student, Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon. He would’ve been good on this voyage, too.  
  
Jake Mason turned to me. “Well, one thing’s for sure. You are now senior counselor. This is the biggest honor the cabin has ever had. Anyone object?”  
  
Nobody did. All my cabinmates smiled at me, and I could almost feel their cabin’s curse breaking, their sense of hopelessness melting away.  
  
“It’s official, then,” Jake said. “You’re the man.”  
  
For once, I was speechless. Ever since my mom died, I’d spent my life on the run. Now I’d found a home and a family. I’d found a job to do. And as scary as it was, I wasn’t tempted to run - not even a little.  
  
“Well,” I said at last, “if you guys elect me leader, you must be even crazier than I am. So let’s build a spankin’ hot war machine!”

* * * * *

"You did well, you know." I jumped a little - I thought everyone had left the bunker to go to free time. Millie stepped out from a little corner where the wall was plastered with smaller weapon designs. "I, uh, was wondering..." She fumbled for a paper in her back pocket. I recognized it as she brought it out; Aeolus had given it to her.

"I had a premonition once, before the war was fully going on. It was this." She unrolled the little paper and I saw a medical-looking device - it had a tube that split in two with little needles at the end, like IV drips. "I thought we were going to need it somehow for the last war, but Charlie had it with him during the explosion. It must've flown away at some point for it to end up at Aeolus. We'd worked on the blueprint together, but I knew we lacked certain things to make it - like whatever it is that needs to go on this end. I also don't quite know who it's meant for, but I do know it's going to save lives."

I just now understood how scary it must be for her, knowing parts of the future, but not all. I looked from the blueprint to her, and she seemed almost nervous.

"Look, I'm just going to say it: can you please help me build it, without telling anyone? I have a feeling nobody else should know, not even Piper and Jason..." She trailed off and looked down, but I lifted her chin. "I'll help, don't worry." She her face relaxed into a smile of relief.

"I also thought I can help you build the ship in turn, I need to practice my singing on people anyway. I might be able to up everyone's spirits and motivation if I try hard enough, and besides, I may not be as good as you and your siblings, but I know my way around most tools, and you're gonna need people to help you pull those all-nighters I know you're planning already" I smiled and nodded.

"Welcome to the team, Sunshine." "That nickname's not going anywhere, is it?" "Nope." I grinned at her and slung my arm around her shoulder. "Now, let's go do counsel-y stuff, and we can start working on your little device tonight when the others are gone.

* * * * *

The council was nothing like I imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec. room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage.  
  
I looked around the room and tried to remember everyone’s name. Thankfully, Jason was next to me, Piper on his other side - it was their first meeting as senior counselors. Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis’s nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist, his arm linked through Millie's - who sat on my other side. The counselor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing “got-your-nose” with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda’s nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back.  
  
Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at us kindly.  
  
Annabeth didn’t look so relaxed. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As soon as Jason walked in, she fixed him with an expectant look, as if she were trying to extract information out of him by sheer willpower.  
  
“Let’s come to order,” Chiron said. “Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you’d kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Emily-Catherine, Jason, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully... more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in.”  
  
Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. Piper, Millie and I chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot.  
  
It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, I knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting, which we hadn't known about until now.

“So Hera was here,” Annabeth said. “Talking to you.”  
  
Jason nodded. “Look, I’m not saying I trust her-”  
  
“That’s smart,” Annabeth said.  
  
“-but she isn’t making this up about another group of demigods. That’s where I came from.”  
  
“Romans.” Clarisse tossed Seymour a Snausage. “You expect us to believe there’s another camp with demigods, but they follow the Roman forms of the gods. And we’ve never even heard of them.”  
  
Piper sat forward. “The gods have kept the two groups apart, because every time they see each other, they try to kill each other.”  
  
“I can respect that,” Clarisse said. “Still, why haven’t we ever run across each other on quests?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Chiron said sadly. “You have, many times. It’s always a tragedy, and always the gods do their best to wipe clean the memories of those involved. The rivalry goes all the way back to the Trojan War, Clarisse. The Greeks invaded Troy and burned it to the ground. The Trojan hero Aeneas escaped, and eventually made his way to Italy, where he founded the race that would someday become Rome. The Romans grew more and more powerful, worshipping the same gods but under different names, and with slightly different personalities.”  
  
“More warlike,” Jason said. “More united. More about expansion, conquest, and discipline.”  
  
“Yuck,” Travis put in.  
  
Several of the others looked equally uncomfortable, though Clarisse shrugged like it sounded okay to her.  
  
Annabeth twirled her knife on the table. “And the Romans hated the Greeks. They took revenge when they conquered the Greek isles, and made them part of the Roman Empire.”  
  
“Not exactly hated them,” Jason said. “The Romans admired Greek culture, and were a little jealous. In return, the Greeks thought the Romans were barbarians, but they respected their military power. So during Roman times, demigods started to divide - either Greek or Roman.”  
  
“And it’s been that way ever since,” Annabeth guessed. “But this is crazy. Chiron, where were the Romans during the Titan War? Didn’t they want to help?”  
  
Chiron tugged at his beard. “They did help, Annabeth. While you and Percy were leading the battle to save Manhattan, who do think conquered Mount Othrys, the Titans’ base in California?”  
  
“Hold on,” Travis said. “You said Mount Othrys just crumbled when we beat Kronos.”  
  
“No,” Jason said. He remembered flashes of the battle - a giant in starry armor and a helm mounted with ram’s horns. He remembered his army of demigods scaling Mount Tam, fighting through hordes of snake monsters. “It didn’t just fall. We destroyed their palace. I defeated the Titan Krios myself.”  
  
Annabeth’s eyes were as stormy as a ventus. I could almost see her thoughts moving, putting the pieces together. “The Bay Area. We demigods were always told to stay away from it because Mount Othrys was there. But that wasn’t the only reason, was it? The Roman camp - it’s got to be somewhere near San Francisco. I bet it was put there to keep watch on the Titans’ territory. Where is it?”  
  
Chiron shifted in his wheelchair. “I cannot say. Honestly, even I have never been trusted with that information. My counterpart, Lupa, is not exactly the sharing type. Jason’s memory, too, has been burned away.”  
  
“The camp’s heavily veiled with magic,” Jason said. “And heavily guarded. We could search for years and never find it.”  
  
Rachel Dare laced her fingers. Of all the people in the room, only she didn’t seem nervous about the conversation. “But you’ll try, won’t you? You’ll build Leo’s boat, the Argo II. And before you make for Greece, you’ll sail for the Roman camp. You’ll need their help to confront the giants.”  
  
“Bad plan,” Clarisse warned. “If those Romans see a warship coming, they’ll assume we’re attacking.”  
  
“You’re probably right,” Jason agreed. “But we have to try. I was sent here to learn about Camp Half-Blood, to try to convince you the two camps don’t have to be enemies. A peace offering.”  
  
“Hmm,” Rachel said. “Because Hera is convinced we need both camps to win the war with the giants. Eight heroes of Olympus - some Greek, some Roman.”  
  
Annabeth nodded. “Your Great Prophecy - what’s the last line?”  
  
“ _And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death_.”  
  
“Gaea has opened the Doors of Death,” Annabeth said. “She’s letting out the worst villains of the Underworld to fight us. Medea, Midas - there’ll be more, I’m sure. Maybe the line means that the Roman and Greek demigods will unite, and find the doors, and close them.”  
  
“Or it could mean they fight each other at the doors of death,” Clarisse pointed out. “It doesn’t say we’ll cooperate.”  
  
There was silence as the campers let that happy thought sink in.  
  
“I’m going,” Annabeth said. “Jason, when you get this ship built, let me go with you.”  
  
“I was hoping you’d offer,” Jason said. “You of all people - the four of us are definitely going to need you.”  
  
“Wait.” I frowned. “I mean that’s cool with me and all. But why Annabeth of all people?”  
  
Annabeth and Jason studied one another.  
  
“Hera said my coming here was an exchange of leaders,” Jason said. “A way for the two camps to learn of each other’s existence.”  
  
“Yeah?” I said. “So?”  
  
“An exchange goes two ways,” Millie said, her face telling me she'd caught on to their train of thoughts. Jason nodded and took over. “When I got here, my memory was wiped. I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged. Fortunately, you guys took me in and I found a new home. I know you’re not my enemy. The Roman camp - they’re not so friendly. You prove your worth quickly, or you don’t survive. They may not be so nice to him, and if they learn where he comes from, he’s going to be in serious trouble.”

“Him?” I said. “Who are you talking about?”  
  
“My boyfriend,” Annabeth said grimly. “He disappeared around the same time Jason appeared. If Jason came to Camp Half-Blood-”  
  
“Exactly,” Jason agreed. “Percy Jackson is at the other camp, and he probably doesn’t even remember who he is.”

* * * * *

I knew the next six months were going to be absolutely exhausting after the first day - and we hadn't even built anything yet. I'd sat down with my cabin and we'd started making notes of materials we'd need, what we needed to make first, how we were going to assemble the ship, and how we'd take shifts so the others could still train occasionally. I told Jake to take care of the cabin after the campfire - of which Millie had lead the sing-along - and we went to the Bunker.

Once there, we put on her little music box - which worked as a speaker too - and put on some old pop songs, and then we repeated the pattern of the ship for the device she'd thought up, which ended up only taking two or three hours to fully figure out. While I made a blacksmith 's grocery list, she got out a sketchpad she'd brought along and started expertly drawing out the pieces of metal we'd need to shape ourselves to fit the device. She put all the little drawings and the blueprint in a little folder when she'd finished, and looked over my shoulder to read the list.

"We'll have to tell Chiron about it, so we can go out and need the mortal supply stuff - we can't take any medical instruments from the infirmary without putting it in the inventory along with the patient it was used on, and we can't take it off the record because we check every week."

I nodded. "I'll make a separate list for that, we could go in our free time in a few days, when the cabin has gotten used to working here."

"Our own little quest. The dynamic duo, Sunshine and Blaze Of Glory." The skin around her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

"Isn't that a Bon Jovi song?" "Not everyone can be as good at nicknames as you are, Valdez." I grinned and got up from the floor, holding my hand out to her. A song I recognized came on, one of the many songs my mother used to sing along to when she was cleaning the workplace - I think it was called Come A Little Bit Closer.

I couldn't stop myself from twirling Millie when she'd gotten up, and to my surprise, she went along with it. She sang along, without any magic or powers, yet I was entranced.

"And I knew, yes I knew I should leave, but then I heard her say~..." We spun a few rounds, both with one arm on the other's waist. We stoped, circled the other way, and repeated a bunch of times. I took one of her hands and twirled her again as the song ended, and one I didn't recognize started. It was definitely something alternative, I could tell by the guitar and stuff, but it wasn't fast paced - it was actually a pretty slow and calm song.

Millie didn't sing along anymore, but she didn't stop dancing. I pulled her closer and put my arms on her waist, hoping she didn't hear my heart beat as fast as it did. She put her hands on my shoulders, and for a moment I thought she'd push me away, but she swayed along with me. The song probably lasted a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity, yet only a few seconds at the same time.

Another song I didn't recognize came on. It was a little quicker, but we kept on swaying instead of letting go.

I started realizing little things about her, like how the gold flecks in her eyes were more concentrated around the pupil, how one corner of mouth lifts up a little further than the other when she smiles, how her left eyebrow is always a little more arched than her right brow, how her lashes are longer in the middle of her eye than the inner and outer parts - making her eyes seem even more huge - and that's when I realized I was leaning in.

The shocking this was that she wasn't trying to move away from me. Then I realized she didn't seem to be moving at all, just staring up at me with an unreadable expression. I started to back out, ashamed and absolutely sure that I'd blown it, but she put a hand on the back of my neck and pulled me closer. Before I could understand what was happening, her lips were on mine. As soon as I came back to my senses, I wrapped my arms around her waist and closed any distance that was left. After a few seconds, when I needed air, we broke off and opened our eyes, but we didn't let go. We both just stood there, a little out of breath, just staring at each other.

When I was positive an actual eternity had passed in the time span of a few seconds, she smiled at me, and I smiled back. I realized the music had stopped, and we weren't swaying anymore, but I didn't move away, and neither did she.

"Does this make you my girlfriend?" I asked, suddenly nervous again. I must've frowned out of worry without realizing, because she smoothed out my forehead with her thumb.

"Only if it makes you my boyfriend."

I smiled and nearly collapsed with relief - despite multiple near-death experiences, this moment had somehow been more nerve-wracking than anything else in the last few days. I kissed the tip of her nose and she scrunched up the bridge of her nose, grinning widely.

"C'mon, we both need sleep now if we're going to be pulling all-nighters on this ship." She nodded at my words and grabbed the little folder with the drawings and blueprints, as well as her little music box. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders as we exited the bunker and together, we walked back to our respective cabins.


	17. Chapter 17

**LEO**  

I blamed the windex. I should’ve known better. Now my entire project - two months of work - might literally blow up in my face.  
  
I stormed around Bunker 9, cursing myself for being so stupid, while my friends and girlfriend - which still felt surreal to say - tried to calm me down.  
  
“It’s okay,” Jason said. “We’re here to help.”  
  
“Just tell us what happened,” Piper urged.  
  
Thank goodness they’d answered the distress call so quickly. I couldn’t turn to anyone else. Having my best friends and girlfriend at my side made me feel better, though I wasn’t sure they could stop the disaster.  
  
Jason looked cool and confident as usual - all surfer-dude handsome with his blond hair and sky-blue eyes. The scar on his mouth and the sword at his side gave him a rugged appearance, like he could handle anything.  
  
Piper stood next to him in her jeans and orange camp T-shirt. Her long brown hair was braided on one side. Her dagger Katoptris gleamed at her belt. Despite the situation, her multicolored eyes sparkled like she was trying to suppress a smile. Now that Jason and she were officially together, Piper looked like that a lot.

Millie stood on Piper's other side in black shorts and a black tank top, her quiver strapped on and her bow slung across her shoulder. She looked beautiful, as always, but today especially - she'd just re-dyed the black and red streaks in her blonde hair yesterday, and they were prominent in her high ponytail. Besides that, she was wearing black lipstick (a present from Piper, who'd gotten a whole colour spectrum of lipsticks from her aunt - she meant well, but didn't know Piper well enough to know that she never wears makeup) which made the upward curve of her mouth even more prominent.  
  
I took a deep breath. “Okay, guys. This is serious. Buford’s gone. If we don’t get him back, this whole place is going to explode.”  
  
Piper’s eyes lost some of that smiley sparkle. “Explode? Um... okay. Just calm down and tell us who Buford is.”  
  
She probably didn’t do it on purpose, but Piper had this child-of-Aphrodite power called charmspeak that made her voice hard to ignore. I felt my muscles relaxing. My mind cleared a little.  
  
“Fine,” I said. “Come here.”  
  
I led them across the hangar floor, carefully skirting some of the more dangerous projects. In my two months at Camp Half-Blood, I had spent most of my time at Bunker 9 - Millie on my side for most of it, training her singing powers as I worked. After all, I’d rediscovered the secret workshop. Now it was like a second home to me. But I knew Jason and Piper still felt uncomfortable here.  
  
I couldn’t blame them. Built into the side of a limestone cliff deep in the woods, the bunker was part weapons depot, part machine shop, and part underground safe house, with a little bit of Area 51–style craziness thrown in for good measure. Rows of workbenches stretched into the darkness. Tool cabinets, storage closets, cages full of welding equipment, and stacks of construction material made a labyrinth of aisles so vast, I figured I’d only explored about ten percent of it so far. Overhead ran a series of catwalks and pneumatic tubes for delivering supplies, plus a high-tech lighting and sound system that I was just starting to figure out.  
  
A large magical banner hung over the center of the production floor. I had recently discovered how to change the display, like the Times Square JumboTron, so now the banner read: _Merry Christmas! All your presents belong to Leo!_  
  
I ushered my friends to the central staging area. Decades ago, my metallic friend Festus the bronze dragon had been created here. Now, I was slowly assembling my pride and joy - the Argo II.  
  
At the moment, it didn’t look like much. The keel was laid - a length of Celestial bronze curved like Millie's bow, two hundred feet from bow to stern. The lowest hull planks had been set in place, forming a shallow bowl held together by scaffolding. Masts lay to one side, ready for positioning. The bronze dragon figurehead - formerly the head of Festus - sat nearby, carefully wrapped in velvet, waiting to be installed in its place of honor.  
  
Most of my time had been spent in the middle of the ship, at the base of the hull, where I was building the engine that would run the warship.  
  
I climbed the scaffolding and jumped into the hull. Millie, Jason and Piper followed.  
  
“See?” I said.  
  
Fixed to the keel, the engine apparatus looked like a high-tech jungle gym made from pipes, pistons, bronze gears, magical disks, steam vents, electric wires, and a million other magical and mechanical pieces. I slid inside and pointed out the combustion chamber.  
  
It was a thing of beauty, a bronze sphere the size of a basketball, its surface bristling with glass cylinders so it looked like a mechanical starburst. Gold wires ran from the ends of the cylinders, connecting to various parts of the engine. Each cylinder was filled with a different magical and highly dangerous substance. The central sphere had a digital clock display that read 66:21. The maintenance panel was open. Inside, the core was empty.  
  
“There’s your problem,” I announced.  
  
Jason scratched his head. “Uh... what are we looking at?”  
  
I thought it was pretty obvious, but Piper looked confused too - even Millie, who'd been around for about a third of the building process.  
  
“Okay,” Leo sighed, “you want the full explanation or the short explanation?”  
  
“Short,” the three of them said in unison.  
  
I gestured to the empty core. “The syncopator goes here. It’s a multi-access gyro-valve to regulate flow. The dozen glass tubes on the outside? Those are filled with powerful, dangerous stuff. That glowing red one is Lemnos fire from my dad’s forges. This murky stuff here? That’s water from the River Styx. The stuff in the tubes is going to power the ship, right? Like radioactive rods in a nuclear reactor. But the mix ratio has to be controlled, and the timer is already operational.”  
  
I tapped the digital clock, which now read 65:15. “That means without the syncopator, this stuff is all going to vent into the chamber at the same time, in sixty-five minutes. At that point, we’ll get a very nasty reaction.”  
  
Jason and Piper stared at him. I wondered if I’d been speaking English. Sometimes when I was agitated I slipped into Spanish, like my mom used to do in her workshop. But I was pretty sure I’d used English.  
  
“Um...” Piper cleared her throat. “Could you make the short explanation shorter?”  
  
I was about to speak when Millie - who'd apparently understood at least enough of my explanation - covered my mouth with her hand. “One hour until the fluids mix, which would cause a large explosion.”  
  
“Oh,” Piper said in a small voice. “Can’t you just... turn it off?”  
  
“Gee, I didn’t think of that!” I said. “Let me just hit this switch and - No, Piper. I can’t turn it off. This is a tricky piece of machinery. Everything has to be assembled in a certain order in a certain amount of time. Once the combustion chamber is rigged, like this, you can’t just leave all those tubes sitting there. The engine has to be put into motion. The countdown clock started automatically, and I’ve got to install the syncopator before the fuel goes critical. Which would be fine except... well, I lost the syncopator."  
  
Jason folded his arms. “You lost it. Don’t you have an extra? Can’t you pull one out of your tool belt?”  
  
I shook my head. The magic tool belt could produce a lot of great stuff. Any kind of common tool - hammers, screwdrivers, bolt cutters, whatever - I could pull out of the pockets just by thinking about it. But the belt couldn’t fabricate complicated devices or magic items.

“The syncopator took me a week to make,” I said. “And yes, I made a spare. I always do. But that’s lost too. They were both in Buford’s drawers.”  
  
“Who is Buford?” Piper asked. “And why are you storing syncopators in his drawers?”  
  
I rolled my eyes. “Buford is a table.”  
  
“A table,” Jason repeated. “Named Buford.”  
  
“Yes, a table.” I wondered if my friends were losing their hearing. “A magic walking table. About three feet high, mahogany top, bronze base, three movable legs. I saved him from one of the supply closets and got him in working order. He’s just like the tables my dad has in his workshop. Awesome helper; carries all my important machine parts.”  
  
“So what happened to him?” Piper asked.  
  
I felt a lump rising in my throat. The guilt was almost too much. “I- I got careless. I polished him with Windex, and... he ran away.”

Millie, who had met and polished the table many times, hit her forehead with her palm.  
  
Jason looked like he was trying to figure out an equation. “Let me get this straight. Your table ran away... because you polished him with Windex.”  
  
“I know, I’m an idiot!” I moaned. “A brilliant idiot, but still an idiot. Buford hates being polished with Windex. It has to be Lemon Pledge with extra-moisturizing formula. I was distracted. I thought maybe just once he wouldn’t notice. Then I turned around for a while to install the combustion tubes, and when I looked for Buford...”  
  
I pointed to the giant open doors of the bunker. “He was gone. Little trail of oil and bolts leading outside. He could be anywhere by now, and he’s got both syncopators!”  
  
Piper glanced at the digital clock. “So... we have exactly one hour to find your runaway table, get back your synco-whatsit, and install it in this engine, or the Argo II explodes, destroying Bunker Nine and most of the woods.”  
  
“Basically,” I said.  
  
Jason frowned. “We should alert the other campers. We might have to evacuate them.”  
  
“No!” My voice broke. “Look, the explosion won’t destroy the whole camp. Just the woods. I’m pretty sure. Like sixty-five percent sure.”  
  
“Well, that’s a relief,” Piper muttered.  
  
“Besides,” I said, “we don’t have time, and I- I can’t tell the others. If they find out how badly I’ve messed up...”  
  
Jason and Piper looked at each other. Millie stepped to my side and squeezed my shoulder in support. The clock display changed to 59:00.  
  
“Fine,” Jason said. “But we’d better hurry.”  
  
As we trudged through the woods, the sun started to set. The camp’s weather was magically controlled, so it wasn’t freezing and snowing like it was in the rest of Long Island, but still I could tell it was late December. In the shadows of the huge oak trees, the air was cold and damp. The mossy ground squished under their feet.  
  
I was tempted to summon fire in my hand. I’d gotten better at that since coming to camp, but I knew the nature spirits in the woods didn’t like fire. I didn’t want to be yelled at by any more dryads.  
  
Christmas Eve. I couldn’t believe it was here already. I’d been working so hard in Bunker 9, I’d hardly noticed the weeks passing. Usually around the holidays I would be goofing around, pranking my friends, dressing up like Taco Claus (my personal invention), and leaving carne asada tacos in people’s socks and sleeping bags, or pouring eggnog down his friends’ shirts, or making up inappropriate lyrics to Christmas carols. This year, I was all serious and hardworking. Any teacher I’d ever had would laugh if I described himself that way.  
  
Thing was, I had never cared so much about a project before. The Argo II had to be ready by June if we were going to start our big quest on time. And while June seemed a long way away, I knew I’d barely have time to make the deadline. Even with the entire Hephaestus cabin, Millie and even the occasional Hecate cabin member helping me, constructing a magic flying warship was a huge task. It made launching a NASA spaceship look easy. We’d had so many setbacks, but all I could think about was getting the ship finished. It would be his masterpiece.  
  
Also, I wanted to get the dragon figurehead installed. I missed my old friend Festus, who’d literally crashed and burned on our last quest. Even if Festus would never be the same again, I hoped I could reactivate his brain by using the ship’s engines. If I could give Festus a second life, I wouldn’t feel so bad.  
  
But none of that would happen if the combustion chamber exploded. It would be game over. No ship. No Festus. No quest. I would have no one to blame but myself. He really hated Windex.  
  
Jason knelt at the banks of a stream. He pointed to some marks in the mud. “Do those look like table tracks?”  
  
“Or a raccoon,” I suggested.  
  
Jason frowned. “With no toes?”  
  
“Piper?” I asked. “What do you think?”  
  
She sighed. “Just because I’m Native American doesn’t mean I can track furniture through the wilderness.” She deepened her voice: “‘Yes, kemosabe. A three-legged table passed this way an hour ago.’ Heck, I don’t know.”  
  
“Okay, jeez,” I said.  
  
Piper was half Cherokee, half Greek goddess. Some days it was hard to tell which side of her family she was more sensitive about.  
  
“It’s probably a table,” Jason decided. “Which means Buford went across this stream.”  
  
Suddenly the water gurgled. A girl in a shimmering blue dress rose to the surface. She had stringy green hair, blue lips, and pale skin, so she looked like a drowning victim. Her eyes were wide with alarm.  
  
“Could you be any louder?” she hissed. “They’ll hear you!”  
  
I blinked. I never got used to this - nature spirits just popping up out of trees and streams and whatnot.  
  
“Are you a naiad?” I asked.  
  
“Shh! They’ll kill us all! They’re right over there!” She pointed behind her, into the trees on the other side of the stream. Unfortunately, that was the direction Buford seemed to have walked.  
  
“Okay,” Piper said gently, kneeling next to the water. “We appreciate the warning. What’s your name?”  
  
The naiad looked like she wanted to bolt, but Piper’s voice was hard to resist.  
  
“Brooke,” the blue girl said reluctantly.  
  
“Brooke the brook?” Jason asked.  
  
Piper swatted his leg. “Okay, Brooke. I’m Piper. We won’t let anyone harm you. Just tell us who you’re afraid of.”  
  
The naiad’s face became more agitated. The water boiled around her. “My crazy cousins. You can’t stop them. They’ll tear you apart. None of us is safe! Now go away. I have to hide!”  
  
Brooke melted into water.  
  
Piper stood. “Crazy cousins?” She frowned at Jason. “Any idea what she was talking about?”  
  
Jason shook his head. “Maybe we should keep our voices down.”  
  
I stared at the stream. I was trying to figure what was so horrible that it could tear apart a river spirit. How do you tear up water? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to meet it.  
  
Yet I could see Buford’s tracks on the opposite bank - little square prints in the mud, leading in the direction the naiad had warned them about.  
  
“We have to follow the trail, right?” I said, mostly to convince myself. “I mean... we’re heroes and stuff. We can handle whatever it is. Right?”  
  
Jason drew his sword - a wicked Roman-style gladius with an Imperial gold blade. “Right. Of course.”  
  
Piper unsheathed her dagger. She stared into the blade as if hoping Katoptris would show her a helpful vision. Sometimes the dagger did that. But if she saw anything important, she didn’t say.

Millie took her bow off of her shoulder and nocked an arrow  
  
“Crazy cousins,” she muttered. “Here we come.”  
  
There was no more talking as we followed the table tracks deeper into the woods. The birds were silent. No monsters growled. It was as if all the other living creatures in the woods had been smart enough to leave.  
  
Finally we came to a clearing the size of a mall parking lot. The sky overhead was heavy and gray. The grass was dry yellow, and the ground was scarred with pits and trenches as if someone had done some crazy driving with construction equipment. In the center of the clearing stood a pile of boulders about thirty feet tall.

Millie tensed completely, her entire body rigid.  
  
“Oh,” Piper said. “This isn’t good.”  
  
“Why?” Leo asked.  
  
“It’s bad luck to be here,” Millie said. “This is the battle site.”  
  
I scowled. “What battle?”  
  
Piper raised her eyebrows. “How can you not know about it? The other campers talk about this place all the time.”  
  
“Been a little busy,” I said.  
  
I tried not to feel bitter about it, but I’d missed out on a lot of regular camp stuff - the trireme fights, the chariot races, the campfires.  
  
“The Battle of the Labyrinth.” Millie kept her voice down, but she explained to me how the pile of rocks used to be called Zeus’s Fist, back when it looked like something, not just a pile of rocks. There’d been an entrance to a magical labyrinth here, and a big army of monsters had come through it to invade camp. The campers won - obviously, since camp was still here - but it had been a hard battle. Several demigods had died. The clearing was still considered cursed.  
  
“Great,” I grumbled. “Buford has to run to the most dangerous part of the woods. He couldn’t just, like, run to the beach or a burger shop.”  
  
“Speaking of which...” Jason studied the ground. “How are we going to track him? There’s no trail here.”  
  
Though I would’ve preferred to stay in the cover of the trees, I followed my friends into the clearing. We searched for table tracks, but as we made our way to the pile of boulders we found nothing. I pulled a watch from my tool belt and strapped it to my wrist. Roughly forty minutes until the big ka-boom.  
  
“If I had more time,” I said, “I could make a tracking device, but-”  
  
“Does Buford have a round tabletop?” Piper interrupted. “With little steam vents sticking up on one side?”  
  
I stared at her. “How did you know?”  
  
“Because he’s right over there.” She pointed.  
  
Sure enough, Buford was waddling toward the far end of the clearing, steam puffing from his vents. As we watched, he disappeared into the trees.  
  
“That was easy.” Jason started to follow, but I held him back.  
  
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I wasn’t sure why.

"Duck, now, behind the boulders!" Millie sounded urgent, looking around.

Then I realized I could hear voices from the woods on our left. “Someone’s coming!”  
  
Jason whispered, “Leo-”  
  
“Shh!”  
  
A dozen barefoot girls skipped into the clearing. They were teenagers with tunic-style dresses of loose purple and red silk. Their hair was tangled with leaves, and most wore laurel wreaths. Some carried strange staffs that looked like torches. The girls laughed and swung each other around, tumbling in the grass and spinning like they were dizzy. They were all really gorgeous, but something told me they were dangerous.

 

Piper sighed. “They’re just nymphs, Leo.”  
  
I gestured frantically at her to stay down. I whispered, “Crazy cousins!”  
  
Piper’s eyes widened.  
  
As the nymphs got closer, I started to notice odd details about them. Their staffs weren’t torches. They were twisted wooden branches, each topped with a giant pinecone, and some were wrapped with living snakes. The girls’ laurel wreaths weren’t wreaths, either. Their hair was braided with tiny vipers. The girls smiled and laughed and sang in Ancient Greek as they stumbled around the glade. They appeared to be having a great time, but their voices were tinged with a sort of wild ferocity. If leopards could sing, I thought they would sound like this.  
  
“Are they drunk?” Jason whispered.  
  
I frowned. The girls did act like that, but I thought there was something else going on. I was glad the nymphs hadn’t seen them yet.  
  
Then things got complicated. In the woods to their right, something roared. The trees rustled, and a drakon burst into the clearing, looking sleepy and irritated, as if the nymphs’ singing had woken it up.  
  
I had seen plenty of monsters in the woods. The camp intentionally stocked them as a challenge to campers. But this was bigger and scarier than most.  
  
The drakon was about the size of a subway car. It had no wings, but its mouth bristled with dagger-like teeth. Flames curled from its nostrils. Silvery scales covered its body like polished chain mail. When the drakon saw the nymphs, it roared again and shot flames into the sky.  
  
The girls didn’t seem to notice. They kept doing cartwheels and laughing and playfully pushing each other around.  
  
“We’ve got to help them,” Piper whispered. “They’ll be killed!”  
  
“Hold on,” Millie said, eyes going from left to right - something she did when trying to figure out mythology.  
  
“Leo,” Jason chided. “We’re heroes. We can’t let innocent girls-”  
  
“Just chill!” I insisted. Something bothered me about these girls - a story I only half remembered. As counselor for Hephaestus cabin, I made it my business to read up on magic items, just in case I needed to build them someday. I was sure I’d read something about pinecone staffs wrapped with snakes. “Watch.”  
  
Finally one of the girls noticed the drakon. She squealed in delight, as if she’d spotted a cute puppy. She skipped toward the monster and the other girls followed, singing and laughing, which seemed to confuse the drakon. It probably wasn’t used to its prey being so cheerful.  
  
A nymph in a blood-red dress did a cartwheel and landed in front of the drakon. “Are you Dionysus?” she asked hopefully.  
  
It seemed like a stupid question. True, I had never met Dionysus, but I was pretty sure the god of wine wasn’t a fire-breathing drakon.  
  
The monster blasted fire at the girl’s feet. She simply danced out of the kill zone. The drakon lunged and caught her arm in its jaws. Leo winced, sure the nymph’s limb would be amputated right before his eyes, but she yanked it free, along with several broken drakon teeth. Her arm was perfectly fine. The drakon made a sound somewhere between a growl and a whimper.  
  
“Naughty!” the girl scolded. She turned to her cheerful friends. “Not Dionysus! He must join our party!”  
  
A dozen nymphs squealed in delight and surrounded the monster.  
  
Piper caught her breath. “What are they- oh, gods. No!”  
  
I didn’t usually feel sorry for monsters, but what happened next was truly horrifying. The girls threw themselves at the drakon. Their cheerful laughter turned into vicious snarling. They attacked with their pinecone staffs, with fingernails that turned into long white talons, with teeth that elongated into wolfish fangs.  
  
The monster blew fire and stumbled, trying to get away, but the teenage girls were too much for him. The nymphs ripped and tore until the drakon slowly crumbled into powder, its spirit returning to Tartarus.  
  
Jason made a gulping sound. I had seen my friend in all sorts of dangerous situations, but I’d never seen Jason look quite so pale.  
  
Piper was shielding her eyes, muttering, “Oh, gods. Oh, gods.”  
  
I tried to keep my own voice from trembling. “I read about these nymphs. They’re followers of Dionysus. I forget what they’re called-”  
  
“Maenads.” Piper shivered. “I’ve heard of them. I thought they only existed in ancient times. They attended Dionysus’s parties. When they got too excited...”  
  
She pointed toward the clearing. She didn’t need to say more. Brooke the naiad had warned them. Her crazy cousins ripped their victims to pieces.  
  
“We have to get out of here,” Jason said.  
  
“But they’re between us and Buford!” I whispered. “And we’ve only got-” I checked his watch. “Thirty minutes to get the syncopator installed!”  
  
“Maybe I can fly us over to Buford.” Jason shut his eyes tight.  
  
I knew Jason had controlled the wind before - just one of the advantages of being the über-cool son of Zeus - but this time, nothing happened.  
  
Jason shook his head. “I don’t know... the air feels agitated. Maybe those nymphs are messing things up. Even the wind spirits are too nervous to get close.”  
  
I glanced back the way we’d come. “We’ll have to retreat to the woods. If we can skirt around the Maenads-”  
  
“Guys,” Piper squeaked in alarm.  
  
I looked up. I hadn’t noticed the Maenads approaching, climbing the rocks with absolute silence even creepier than their laughter. They peered down from the tops of the boulders, smiling prettily, their fingernails and teeth back to normal. Vipers coiled through their hair.  
  
“Hello!” The girl in the blood-red dress beamed at me. “Are you Dionysus?”  
  
There was only one answer to that.  
  
“Yes!” I yelped. “Absolutely. I am Dionysus.”  
  
I got to my feet and tried to match the girl’s smile.  
  
The nymph clapped her hands in delight. “Wonderful! My lord Dionysus? Really?”  
  
Jason, Millie and Piper rose, weapons ready, but I hoped it didn’t come to a fight. I’d seen how fast these nymphs could move. If they decided to go into food-processor mode, I doubted any of us would stand a chance.  
  
The Maenads giggled and danced and pushed each other around. Several fell off the rocks and landed hard on the ground. That didn’t seem to bother them. They just got up and kept frolicking.  
  
Piper nudged me in the ribs. “Um, Lord Dionysus, what are you doing?”  
  
“Everything’s cool.” I looked at his friends like, _Everything’s really, really not cool._ “The Maenads are my attendants. I love these guys.”  
  
The Maenads cheered and twirled around him. Several produced goblets from thin air and began to chug... whatever was inside.  
  
The girl in red looked uncertainly at Millie, Piper and Jason. “Lord Dionysus, are these two sacrifices for the party? Should we rip them to pieces?”  
  
“No, no!” I said. “Great offer, but, um, you know, maybe we should start small. With, like, introductions.”  
  
The girl narrowed her eyes. “Surely you remember me, my lord. I am Babette.”  
  
“Um, right!” I said. “Babette! Of course.”  
  
“And these are Buffy, Muffy, Bambi, Candy-” Babette rattled off a bunch more names that all kind of blended together. I glanced at Piper, wondering if this was some sort of Aphrodite joke. These nymphs could’ve totally fit in with Piper’s cabin. But Piper looked like she was trying not to scream. That might’ve been because two of the Maenads were running their hands over Jason’s shoulders and giggling.  
  
Babette stepped closer to me. She smelled like pine needles. Her curly dark hair spilled over her shoulders and freckles splashed across her nose. A wreath of coral snakes writhed across her forehead.  
  
Nature spirits usually had a greenish tinge to their skin from chlorophyll, but these Maenads looked like their blood was cherry Kool-Aid. Their eyes were severely bloodshot. Their lips were redder than normal. Their skin was webbed with bright capillaries.  
  
“An interesting form you’ve chosen, my lord.” Babette inspected my face and hair. “Youthful. Cute, I suppose. Yet... somewhat scrawny and short.”  
  
“Scrawny and short?” I bit back a few choice replies. “Well, you know. I was going for cute, mostly.”  
  
The other Maenads circled me, smiling and humming. Under normal circumstances, being surrounded by hot girls would’ve been totally okay with me, but not this time - and only partially because of my girlfriend. I couldn’t forget how the Maenads’ teeth and nails had grown just before they tore the drakon to shreds.  
  
“So, my lord.” Babette ran her fingers down my arm. “Where have you been? We’ve searched for so long!”  
  
“Where have I-?” Leo thought furiously. I knew Dionysus used to work as the director of Camp Half-Blood before my time. Then the god had been recalled to Mount Olympus to help deal with the giants. But where did Dionysus hang out these days? I had no idea. “Oh, you know. I’ve been doing, um, wine stuff. Yeah. Red wine. White wine. All those other kinds of wine. Love that wine. I’ve been so busy working-”  
  
“Work!” Muffy the Maenad shrieked, pressing her hands over her ears.  
  
“Work!” Buffy wiped her tongue as if trying to scrub away the horrible word.  
  
The other Maenads dropped their goblets and ran in circles, yelling, “Work! Sacrilege! Kill work!” Some began to grow long claws. Other slammed their heads against the boulders, which seemed to hurt the boulders more than their heads.  
  
“He means partying!” Millie shouted. “Partying! Lord Dionysus has been busy partying all over the world.”  
  
Slowly, the Maenads began to calm down.  
  
“Party?” Bambi asked cautiously.  
  
“Party!” Candy sighed with relief.  
  
“Yeah!” I wiped the sweat off my hands. I shot Millie a grateful look. “Ha-ha. Partying. Right. I’ve been so busy partying.”  
  
Babette kept smiling, but not in such a friendly way. She fixed her gaze on Millie and Piper. “Who are these, my lord? Recruits for the Maenads, perhaps?”  
  
“Oh,” I said. “They're my, uh, party planners.”  
  
“Party!” yelled another Maenad, possibly Trixie.  
  
“What a shame.” Babette’s fingernails began to grow. “We can’t allow mortals to witness our sacred revels.”  
  
“But we could be recruits!” Piper said quickly. “Do you guys have a website? Or a list of requirements? Er, do you have to be drunk all the time?”  
  
“Drunk!” Babette said. “Don’t be silly. We’re underage Maenads. We haven’t graduated to wine yet. What would our parents think?”  
  
“You have parents?” Jason shrugged the Maenads’ hands off his shoulders.  
  
“Not drunk!” Candy yelled. She turned in a dizzy circle and fell down, spilling white frothy liquid from her goblet.  
  
Jason cleared his throat. “So…what are you guys drinking if it isn’t wine?”  
  
Babette laughed. “The beverage of the season! Behold the power of the thyrsus rod!”

She slammed her pinecone staff against the ground and a white geyser bubbled up. “Eggnog!”  
  
Maenads rushed forward to fill their goblets.  
  
“Merry Christmas!” one yelled.  
  
“Party!” another said.  
  
“Kill everything!” said a third.  
  
Piper took a step back. “You’re... drunk on eggnog?”  
  
“Whee!” Buffy sloshed her eggnog and gave me a frothy grin. “Kill things! With a sprinkle of nutmeg!”  
  
I decided never to drink eggnog again.  
  
“But enough talk, my lord,” Babette said. “You’ve been naughty, keeping yourself hidden! You changed your e-mail and phone number. One might think the great Dionysus was trying to avoid his Maenads!”  
  
Jason removed another girl’s hands from his shoulders. “Can’t imagine why the great Dionysus would do that.”  
  
Babette sized up Jason. “This one is a sacrifice, obviously. We should start the festivities by ripping him apart. The party planner girls can prove themselves by helping us!”  
  
“Or,” I said, “we could start with some appetizers. Crispy Cheese ’n’ Wieners. Taquitos. Maybe some chips and queso. And... wait, I know! We need a table to put them on.”  
  
Babette’s smile wavered. The snakes hissed around her pinecone staff. “A table?”  
  
“Cheese ’n’ Wieners?” Trixie added hopefully.  
  
“Yeah, a table!” I snapped my fingers and pointed toward the end of the clearing. “You know what - I think I saw one walking that way. Why don’t you guys wait here, and drink some eggnog or whatever, and my friends and I will go get the table. We’ll be right back!”  
  
I started to leave, but two of the Maenads pushed me back. The push didn’t seem exactly playful.  
  
Babette’s eyes turned an even deeper red. “Why is my lord Dionysus so interested in furniture? Where is your leopard? And your wine cup?”  
  
I gulped. “Yeah. Wine cup. Silly me.” I reached into the tool bag. I prayed it would produce a wine cup for him, but that wasn’t exactly a tool. I grabbed something, pulled it out, and found myself holding a lug wrench.  
  
“Hey, look at that,” I said weakly. “There’s some godly magic right there, huh? What’s a party without... a lug wrench?”  
  
The Maenads stared at me. Some frowned. Others were cross-eyed from the eggnog.  
  
Jason stepped to my side. “Hey, um, Dionysus... maybe we should talk. Like, in private. You know... about party stuff.”  
  
“We’ll be right back!” Piper announced. “Just wait here, you guys. Okay?”  
  
Her voice was almost electric with charmspeak, but the Maenads didn’t appear moved.  
  
“No, you will stay.” Babette’s eyes bored into Leo’s. “You do not act like Dionysus. Those who fail to honor the god, those who dare to work instead of partying - they must be ripped apart. And anyone who dares to impersonate the god, he must die even more painfully.”  
  
“Wine!” I yelped. “Did I mention how much I love wine?”  
  
Babette didn’t look convinced. “If you are the god of parties, you will know the order of our revelries. Prove it! Lead us!”  
  
I felt trapped. I’d once been stuck in a cave on top of Pikes Peak, surrounded by a pack of werewolves. Another time I’d been stuck in an abandoned factory with a family of evil Cyclopes. But this - standing in an open clearing with a dozen pretty girls - was much worse.  
  
“Sure!” My voice squeaked. “Revelries. So we start with the Hokey Pokey-”  
  
Trixie snarled. “No, my lord. The Hokey Pokey is second.”  
  
“Right,” I said. “First is the limbo contest, then the Hokey Pokey. Then, um, pin the tail on the donkey-”  
  
“Wrong!” Babette’s eyes turned completely red. The Kool-Aid darkened in her veins, making a web of red lines like ivy under her skin. “Last chance, and I’ll even give you a hint. We begin by singing the Bacchanalian Jingle. You do remember it, don’t you?”  
  
My tongue felt like sandpaper.  
  
Millie put her hand on my arm. “Of course he remembers it.” Her eyes said, _Run_.  
  
Jason’s knuckles turned white on the hilt of his sword.  
  
I hated singing. I cleared my throat and started warbling the first thing that came into my head - a song I'd heard Millie hum.  
  
After a few lines, Candy hissed. “That is not the Bacchanalian Jingle! That is the theme song for Phineas and Ferb!”  
  
“Kill the unbelievers!” Babette screamed.  
  
I knew an exit cue when I heard one.  
  
I pulled a reliable trick. From my tool belt, I grabbed a flask of oil and splashed it in an arc in front of him, dousing the Maenads. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I reminded myself these girls weren’t human. They were nature spirits bent on ripping him apart. I summoned fire into my hands and set the oil ablaze.  
  
A wall of flames engulfed the nymphs. Jason and Piper did a one-eighty and ran. Millie and I were right behind them.  
  
I expected to hear screaming from the Maenads. Instead, I heard laughter. I glanced back and saw the Maenads dancing through the flames in their bare feet. Their dresses were smoldering, but the Maenads didn’t seem to care. They leaped through the fire like they were playing in a sprinkler.  
  
“Thank you, unbeliever!” Babette laughed. “Our frenzy makes us immune to fire, but it does tickle! Trixie, send the unbelievers a thank-you gift!”  
  
Trixie skipped over to the pile of boulders. She grasped a rock the size of a refrigerator and lifted it over her head.  
  
“Run!” Piper said.  
  
“We are running!” Jason picked up the speed.  
  
“Run better!” Millie shouted.  
  
We reached the edge of the clearing when a shadow passed overhead.  
  
“Veer left!” I yelled.  
  
We dove into the trees as the boulder slammed next to them with a jaw-rattling thud, missing me by a few inches. We skidded down a ravine until I lost my footing. I plowed into Jason and Piper so we ended up rolling downhill like a demigod snowball. We crashed into Brooke’s stream at the bottom, helped each other up, and stumbled deeper into the woods as Millie caught up to us. Behind us, I heard the Maenads laughing and shouting, urging me to come back so they could rip him to shreds.  
  
For some reason, I wasn’t tempted.  
  
Jason pulled us behind a massive oak tree, where we stood gasping for breath. Piper’s elbow was scraped up pretty badly. Jason’s left pants leg had ripped almost completely off, so it looked like his leg was wearing a denim cape. Somehow, we’d all made it down the hill without killing ourselves with our own weapons, which was a miracle.  
  
“How do we beat them?” Jason demanded. “They’re immune to fire. They’re super-strong.”  
  
“We can’t kill them,” Millie said.  
  
“There has to be a way,” I said.  
  
“No. We can’t kill them,” Piper said. “Anyone who kills a Maenad is cursed by Dionysus. Haven’t you read the old stories? People who kill his followers go crazy or get morphed into animals or... well, bad stuff.”  
  
“Worse than letting the Maenads rip us to shreds?” Jason asked.  
  
Piper didn’t answer. Her face was so clammy, I decided not to ask for details.  
  
“That’s just great,” Jason said. “So we have to stop them without killing them. Anyone got a really big piece of flypaper?”  
  
“We’re outnumbered four to one,” Piper said. “Plus...” She grabbed Leo’s wrist and checked his watch. “We have twenty minutes until Bunker Nine explodes.”  
  
“It’s impossible,” Jason summed up.  
  
“We’re dead,” Piper agreed.  
  
But my mind was spinning into overdrive. I did my best work when things were impossible.  
  
Stopping the Maenads without killing them... Bunker 9... flypaper. An idea came together like one of my crazy contraptions, all the gears and pistons clicking into place perfectly.  
  
“I’ve got it,” I said. “Jason, you’ll have to find Buford. You know which way he went. Circle back and find him, then bring him to the bunker, quick! Once you’re far enough from the Maenads, maybe you can control the winds again. Then you can fly.”  
  
Jason frowned. “What about you three?”  
  
“We’re going to lead the Maenads out of your way,” I said, “straight to Bunker Nine.”  
  
Piper coughed. “Excuse me, but isn’t Bunker Nine about to explode?”  
  
“Yes, but if I can get the Maenads inside, I have a way to take care of them.”  
  
Jason looked skeptical. “Even if you can, I’ll still have to find Buford and get the syncopator back to you in twenty minutes, or you, Piper, and a dozen crazy nymphs will blow up.”  
  
“Trust me,” I said. “And it’s nineteen minutes now.”  
  
“I love this plan.” Piper leaned over and kissed Jason. “In case I explode. Please hurry.”  
  
Jason didn’t even respond. He bolted into the woods.  
  
“Come on,” I told the girls. “Let’s invite the Maenads over to my place.”  
  
I had played games in the woods before - mostly capture-the-flag - but even Camp Half-Blood’s full combat version wasn’t nearly as dangerous as running from Maenads. Piper, Millie and I retraced our steps in the fading sunlight. Our breath steamed. Occasionally I would shout, “Party over here!” to let the Maenads know where we were. It was tricky, because we had to stay far enough ahead to avoid getting caught, but close enough so the Maenads wouldn’t lose their trail.  
  
Occasionally I heard startled cries as the Maenads happened across some unfortunate monster or nature spirit. Once a blood-chilling shriek pierced the air, followed by a sound like a tree getting destroyed by an army of savage chipmunks. I was so scared that I could hardly keep my feet moving. I figured some poor dryad had just gotten her life source shredded to splinters. I knew nature spirits got reincarnated, but that death cry was still the most awful thing I’d ever heard.  
  
“Unbelievers!” Babette shouted through the woods. “Come celebrate with us!”  
  
She sounded much closer now. My instincts told me to just keep running. Forget Bunker 9. Maybe the girls and I could make it to the edge of the blast zone.  
  
And then what... leave Jason to die? Let the Maenads blow up so I could suffer the curse of Dionysus? And would the explosion even kill Maenads? I had no idea. What if the Maenads survived and kept searching for Dionysus? Eventually they’d stumble across the cabins and the other campers. No, that wasn’t an option. I had to protect his friends. He could still save the Argo II.  
  
“Over here!” I yelled. “Party at my house!”  
  
I grabbed Piper’s wrist in one hand, Millie's in the other, and sprinted for the bunker.  
  
I could hear the Maenads closing fast - bare feet running across the grass, branches snapping, eggnog goblets shattering against rocks.  
  
“Almost there.” Piper pointed through the woods. A hundred yards ahead rose a sheer limestone cliff that marked the entrance to Bunker 9.

My heart felt like a combustion chamber going critical, but we made it to the cliff. I slapped my hand against the limestone. Fiery lines burned across the cliff face, slowly forming the outline of a massive door.  
  
“Come on! Come on!” I urged.  
  
I made the mistake of glancing back. Only a stone’s throw away, the first Maenad appeared out of the woods. Her eyes were pure red. She grinned with a mouth full of fangs, then slashed her talon fingernails at the nearest tree and sliced it in half. Little tornadoes of leaves swirled around her as if even the air were going crazy.  
  
“Come, demigod!” she called. “Join me in the revels!”  
  
I knew it was insane, but her words buzzed in my ears. Part of me wanted to run toward her.  
  
 _Whoa, boy_ , I told myself. _Golden Rule for Demigods: Thou shalt not Hokey Pokey with psychos._  
  
Still, I took a step toward the Maenad.  
  
“Stop, Leo.” Piper’s charmspeak saved me, freezing me in place. “It’s the madness of Dionysus affecting you. You don’t want to die.”  
  
I took a shaky breath. “Yeah. They’re getting stronger. We’ve got to hurry.”  
  
Finally the bunker doors opened. The Maenad snarled. Her friends emerged from the woods, and together they charged.  
  
“Turn around!” Piper called to them in her most persuasive voice. “We’re fifty yards behind you!”  
  
It was a ridiculous suggestion, but the charmspeak momentarily worked. The Maenads turned and ran back the way they’d come, then stumbled to a halt, looking confused.  
  
The three of us ducked inside the bunker.  
  
“Close the door?” Piper asked.  
  
“No!” I said. “We want them inside.”  
  
“We do? What’s the plan?”  
  
“Plan.” I tried to shake the fogginess from my brain.  
  
We had thirty seconds, tops, before the Maenads poured in.  
  
The Argo II’s engine would explode in - he checked his watch - oh, gods, twelve minutes?  
  
“What can I do?” Piper asked. “Come on, Leo.”  
  
My mind began to clear. This was my territory. I couldn’t let the Maenads win.  
  
From the nearest worktable, I snatched a bronze control box with a single red button. I handed it to Millie. “I need two minutes. Climb the catwalks. Distract the Maenads like you did outside, okay? When I shout the order, wherever you are, push that button. But not before I say.”  
  
“What does it do?” Piper asked.  
  
“Nothing yet. I have to set the trap.”  
  
“Two minutes.” Piper nodded grimly. “You got it.”  
  
The two of them ran to the nearest ladder and began to climb while I raced off down the aisles, snatching things from tool chests and supply cabinets. I grabbed machine parts and wires. I threw switches and activated time-delay sensors on the bunker’s interior control panels. I didn’t think about what I was doing any more than a pianist thinks about where his fingers are landing on the keyboard. I just flew through the bunker, bringing all the pieces together.  
  
I heard the Maenads rushing into the bunker. For a moment, they stopped in amazement, oohing and ahhing at the vast cavern full of shiny stuff.  
  
“Where are you?” Babette called. “My fake lord Dionysus! Party with us!”  
  
I tried to shut out her voice. Then I heard Piper, somewhere in the catwalks above, call out: “How about we square dance? Turn to the left!”  
  
The Maenads shrieked in confusion.  
  
“Grab a partner!” Piper shouted. “Swing her around!”  
  
More cries and shrieking and a few CLANGS as some of the Maenads apparently swung each other into heavy metal objects.  
  
“Stop it!” Babette yelled. “Do not grab a partner! Grab that demigod!”  
  
Piper shouted a few more commands, but she seemed to be losing her sway. Millie pulled her last trick, singing an upbeat song in Ancient Greek, but I wasn't focusing on it.  
  
I heard feet banging on the rungs of ladders.  
  
“Oh, Leo?” Piper yelled, after a little bit of Millie's singing. “Has it been two minutes?”  
  
“Just a sec!” I found the last thing I needed - a quilt-sized stack of shimmering golden fabric. I fed the metallic cloth into the nearest pneumatic tube and pulled the lever. Done - assuming the plan worked.  
  
I ran to the middle of the bunker, right in front of the Argo II, and yelled, “Hey! Here I am!”  
  
I held out my arms and grinned. “Come on! Party with me!”  
  
I glanced at the counter on the ship’s engine. Six and a half minutes left. I wished I hadn’t looked.  
  
The Maenads climbed down from the ladders and began circling me warily. I danced and sang random television theme songs, hoping it would make them hesitate. I needed all the Maenads together before he sprung the trap.  
  
“Sing along!” I said. Millie started singing different songs than I did, and nudged Piper, who started doing the same thing. The Maenads looked confused - even if just for a moment.  
  
Babette was the last to join the party. When she saw me alone, unarmed and dancing, she laughed with delight.  
  
“You are wise to accept your fate,” she said. “The real Dionysus would be pleased.”  
  
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “I think there’s a reason he changed his number. You guys aren’t followers. You’re crazy rabid stalkers. You haven’t found him because he doesn’t want you to.”  
  
“Lies!” Babette said. “We are the spirits of the wine god! He is proud of us!”  
  
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve got some crazy relatives too. I don’t blame Mr. D.”  
  
“Kill him!” Babette shrieked.  
  
“Wait!” I held up my hands. “You can kill me, but you want this to be a real party, don’t you?”  
  
As I’d hoped, the Maenads wavered.  
  
“Party?” asked Candy.  
  
“Party?” asked Buffy.  
  
“Oh, yeah!” I looked up and shouted to the catwalks: “Millie? It’s time to crank things up!”  
  
For three incredibly long seconds, nothing happened. Leo just stood there grinning at a dozen frenzied nymphs who wanted to dice him into bite-sized demigod cubes.  
  
Then the whole bunker whirred to life. All around the Maenads, pipes rose from the floor and blew purple steam. The pneumatic tube system spit out metal shavings like glittered confetti. The magic banner above them shimmered and changed to read _WELCOME, PSYCHO NYMPHS!_  
  
Music blared from the sound system - the Rolling Stones, my mom’s favorite band. I liked to have Millie play and sing along to them while I worked, because it reminded me of the good old days when I hung out in my mom’s shop.  
  
Then the winch system swung into place, and a mirrored ball began to descend right over my head.  
  
On the catwalk above, Piper stared down at the chaos Millie had wrought with the push of a button, and her jaw dropped. Even the Maenads looked impressed by my instant party. Millie was looking around in pure amazement, staring at the controller and back at us.  
  
Given a few more minutes, I could’ve done much better - a laser show, pyrotechnics, maybe some appetizers and a drink machine. But for two minutes’ work, it wasn’t bad. A few Maenads began to square dance. One did the Hokey Pokey.  
  
Only Babette looked unaffected. “What trick is this?” she demanded. “You do not party for Dionysus!”  
  
“Oh, no?” I glanced up. The mirrored ball was almost within reach. “You haven’t seen my final trick.”  
  
The ball opened up. A grappling hook dropped down, and I jumped for it.  
  
“Get him!” Babette yelled. “Maenads, attack!”  
  
Thankfully, she had trouble getting their attention. Piper started calling down square dancing instructions again, confusing them with odd commands. “Turn left, turn right, bonk your heads! Sit down, stand up, fall down dead!”  
  
The pulley lifted me into the air as the Maenads swarmed underneath him, gathering in a nice compact cluster. Babette leaped at him. Her claws just missed his feet.  
  
“Now!” I muttered to myself, praying that his timer was set accurately.  
  
 _BLAM!_ The nearest pneumatic tube shot a curtain of golden mesh over the Maenads, covering them like a parachute. A perfect shot.  
  
The Maenads struggled against the net. They tried pushing it off, cutting the ropes with their teeth and fingernails, but as they punched and kicked and struggled, the net simply changed shape, hardening into a cubical cage of glittered gold.  
  
I grinned. “Millie, hit the button again!”  
  
She did. The music died. The party ended.  
  
I dropped from the hook onto the top of my newly made cage. I stomped on the roof, just to be sure, but it felt as hard as titanium.  
  
“Let us out!” Babette shrieked. “What evil magic is this?”  
  
She slammed against the woven bars, but even her super-strength was no match for the golden material. The other Maenads hissed and screamed and banged on the cage with their thyrsus rods.  
  
I jumped to the ground. “This is my party now, ladies. That cage is made from Hephaestian netting, a little recipe my dad cooked up. Maybe you’ve heard the story. He caught his wife Aphrodite cheating on him with Ares, so Hephaestus threw a golden net over them and put them on display. They stayed trapped until my dad decided to let them out. That netting right there? That’s made from the same stuff. If two gods couldn’t escape it, you don’t stand a chance.”  
  
I seriously hoped I was right about that. The furious Maenads raged around their prison, climbing over each other and trying to rip through the mesh with no success.  
  
Piper and Millie slid down the ladder and joined me. “Leo, you are amazing.” Millie gave me a kiss on the cheek.  
  
“I know that.” I looked at the digital display next to the ship’s engine. My heart sank. “For about two more minutes. Then I stop being amazing.”  
  
“Oh, no.” Piper’s face fell. “We need to get out of here!”  
  
Suddenly I heard a familiar sound from the bunker entrance: a puff of steam, the creak of gears, and the clink-clank of metal legs running across the floor.  
  
“Buford!” I called. The automated table chuffed toward him, whirring and clacking its drawers.  
  
Jason walked in behind him, grinning. “Waiting for us?”  
  
I hugged the little worktable. “I’m so sorry, Buford. I promise I’ll never take you for granted again. Only Lemon Pledge with extra-moisturizing formula, my friend. Anytime you want it!”  
  
Buford puffed steam happily.  
  
“Um, Leo?” Piper urged. “The explosion?”  
  
“Right!” I opened Buford’s front drawer and grabbed the syncopator. I ran to the combustion chamber. Twenty-three seconds. Oh, good. No rush.  
  
I would only get one chance to do this right. I carefully fitted the syncopator into place. I closed the combustion chamber and held my breath. The engine started to hum. The glass cylinders glowed with heat. If I hadn’t been immune to fire, I was pretty sure I would have gotten a nasty sunburn.  
  
The ship’s hull shuddered. The whole bunker seemed to tremble.  
  
“Leo?” Jason asked tightly.  
  
“Hold on,” I said.  
  
“Let us out!” Babette screeched in her golden cage. “If you destroy us, Dionysus will make you suffer!”  
  
“He’ll probably send us a thank-you card,” Piper grumbled. “But it won’t matter. We’ll all be dead.”

The combustion chamber opened its various chambers with a click, click, click. Super-dangerous liquids and gases flowed into the syncopator. The engine shuddered. Then the heat subsided, and the shaking calmed down to a comfortable purr.  
  
I put his hand on the hull, now thrumming with the magical energy. Buford snuggled affectionately against his leg and puffed steam.  
  
“That’s right, Buford.” I turned proudly to my friends. “That is the sound of an engine not exploding.”  
  
I didn’t realize how stressed I’d been until I passed out.  
  
When I woke up, I was lying on a cot near the Argo II. The entire Hephaestus cabin was there. They’d gotten the engine levels stabilized and were all expressing their amazement at my genius.  
  
Once I was back on my feet, my friends pulled me aside and promised they hadn’t told anyone just how close the ship had come to exploding. No one would ever know about the huge mistake that almost vaporized the woods.  
  
Still, I couldn’t stop trembling. I’d almost ruined everything. To calm myself down, I pulled out the Lemon Pledge and carefully polished Buford. Then I took the spare syncopator and locked it in a supply cabinet that did not have legs. Just in case. Buford could be temperamental.  
  
An hour later, Chiron and Argus arrived from the Big House to take care of the Maenads.  
  
Argus, the head of security, was a big blond dude with hundreds of eyes all over his body. He seemed embarrassed to find that a dozen dangerous Maenads had infiltrated his territory unnoticed. Argus never spoke, but he blushed brightly and all the eyes on his body stared at the floor.  
  
Chiron, the camp director, looked more annoyed than concerned. He stared down at the Maenads - which he could do, being a centaur. From the waist down, he was white stallion. From the waist up, he was a middle-aged guy with curly brown hair, a beard, and a bow and quiver strapped across his back.  
  
“Oh, them again,” Chiron said. “Hello, Babette.”  
  
“We will destroy you!” Babette shrieked. “We will dance with you, feed you yummy appetizers, party with you until the wee hours, and rip you to pieces!”  
  
“Uh-huh.” Chiron looked unimpressed. He turned to me and my friends. “Well done, you three. The last time these girls came looking for Dionysus, they caused quite a nuisance. You caught them before they could get out of hand. Dionysus will be pleased they’ve been captured.”  
  
“So they do annoy him?” I asked.  
  
“Absolutely,” Chiron said. “Mr. D despises his fan club almost as much as he despises demigods.”  
  
“We are not a fan club!” Babette wailed. “We are his followers, his chosen, his special ones!”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Chiron said again.  
  
“So...” Piper shifted uneasily. “Dionysus wouldn’t have minded if we had to destroy them?”  
  
“Oh, no, he would mind!” Chiron said. “They’re still his followers, even if he hates them. If you hurt them, Dionysus would be forced to drive you insane or kill you. Probably both. So well done.” He looked at Argus. “Same plan as last time?”  
  
Argus nodded. He gestured to one of the Hephaestus campers, who drove a forklift over and loaded up the cage.  
  
“What will you do with them?” Jason asked.  
  
Chiron smiled kindly. “We’ll send them to a place where they feel at home. We’ll load them on a bus to Atlantic City.”  
  
“Ouch,” I said. “Doesn’t that place have enough problems?”  
  
“Not to worry,” Chiron promised. “The Maenads will get the partying out of their systems very quickly. They’ll wear themselves out and fade away until next year. They always seem to show up around the holidays. Quite annoying.”  
  
The Maenads were carted off. Chiron and Argus headed back to the Big House, and my campers helped me lock up Bunker 9 for the night.  
  
Usually I worked into the wee hours - Millie by my side most of the time - but I decided I’d done enough for one day. It was Christmas Eve, after all. I’d earned a break.  
  
Camp Half-Blood didn’t really celebrate mortal holidays, but everyone was in a good mood at the campfire. Some kids were drinking eggnog. The four of us passed on that and went for hot chocolate instead.  
  
We listened to sing-along songs and watched sparks from the fire curl up toward the stars. Millie had passed the honor of leading the songs to one of her half-sisters, a girl just a few months younger than her named Amy.  
  
“You saved my hide again, guys,” I told my friends. “Thank you.”  
  
Jason smiled. “Anything for you, Valdez. You sure the Argo II will be safe now?”  
  
“Safe? No. But she’s not in danger of exploding. Probably.”  
  
Piper laughed. “Great. I feel much better.”  
  
We sat quietly, enjoying each other’s company, but I knew this was just a brief moment of peace. The Argo II had to be finished by the summer solstice. Then we would sail off on our great adventure - first to find Jason’s old home, the Roman camp. After that... the giants were waiting. Gaea the earth mother, the most powerful enemy of the gods, was marshaling her forces to destroy Olympus. To stop her, my friends and I would have to sail to Greece, the ancient homeland of the gods. At any point along the way, I knew I might die.  
  
For now, though, I decided to enjoy myself. When your life is on a timer to an inevitable explosion, that’s about all you can do.  
  
I raised my goblet of hot chocolate. “To friends.”  
  
“Friends,” Millie,Piper and Jason agreed.  
  
I stayed at the campfire until Amy suggested they all do the Hokey Pokey. Then I decided to call it a night.


	18. Chapter 18

**PERCY**

Hazel, Frank and I ate break fast early, then headed into the city before the senate was due to convene. As I was a praetor now, I could go pretty much wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  
  
On the way, we passed the stables, where Tyson and Mrs. O’Leary were sleeping in. Tyson snored on a bed of hay next to the unicorns, a blissful look on his face like he was dreaming of ponies. Mrs. O’Leary had rolled on her back and covered her ears with her paws. On the stable roof, Ella roosted in a pile of old Roman scrolls, her head tucked under her wings.  
  
When we got to the forum, we sat by the fountains and watched the sun come up. The citizens were already busy sweeping up cupcake simulations, confetti, and party hats from last night’s celebration. The engineer corps was working on a new arch that would commemorate the victory over Polybotes.  
  
Hazel said she’d even heard talk of a formal triumph for the three of them - a parade around the city followed by a week of games and celebrations - but I knew we’d never get the chance. They didn’t have time.  
  
I told them about my dream of Juno.  
  
Hazel frowned. “The gods were busy last night. Show him, Frank.”  
  
Frank reached into his coat pocket. I thought he might bring out his piece of firewood, but instead he produced a thin paperback book and a note on red stationery.  
  
“These were on my pillow this morning.” He passed them to ME. “Like the Tooth Fairy visited.”  
  
The book was The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I had never heard of it, but I could guess who sent it. The letter read: _Good job, kid. A real man’s best weapon is his mind. This was your mom’s favorite book. Give it a read. P.S.—I hope your friend Percy has learned some respect for me._  
  
“Wow.” I handed back the book. “Maybe Mars is different than Ares. I don’t think Ares can read.”  
  
Frank flipped through the pages. “There’s a lot in hereabout sacrifice, knowing the cost of war. Back in Vancouver, Mars told me I’d have to put my duty ahead of my life or the entire war would go sideways. I thought he meant freeing Thanatos, but now... I don’t know. I’m still alive, so maybe the worst is yet to come.”  
  
He glanced nervously at me, and I got the feeling Frank wasn’t telling me everything. I wondered if Mars had said something about me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.  
  
Besides, Frank had already given enough. He had watched his family home burn down. He’d lost his mother and his grandmother.  
  
“You risked your life,” I said. “You were willing to burn up to save the quest. Mars can’t expect more than that.”  
  
“Maybe,” Frank said doubtfully.  
  
Hazel squeezed Frank’s hand.  
  
They seemed more comfortable around each other this morning, not quite as nervous and awkward. I wondered if they’d started dating. I hoped so, but I decided it was better not to ask.  
  
“Hazel, how about you?” I asked. “Any word from Pluto?”  
  
She looked down. Several diamonds popped out of the ground at her feet. “No,” she admitted. “In a way, I think he sent a message through Thanatos. My name wasn’t on that list of escaped souls. It should have been.”  
  
“You think your dad is giving you a pass?” I asked.  
  
Hazel shrugged. “Pluto can’t visit me or even talk to me without acknowledging I’m alive. Then he’d have to enforce the laws of death and have Thanatos bring me back to the Underworld. I think my dad is turning a blind eye. I think- I think he wants me to find Nico.”  
  
I glanced at the sunrise, hoping to see a warship descending from the sky. So far, nothing.  
  
“We’ll find your brother,” I promised. “As soon as the ship gets here, we’ll sail for Rome.”  
  
Hazel and Frank exchanged uneasy looks, like they’d already talked about this.  
  
“Percy...” Frank said. “If you want us to come along, we’re in. But are you sure? I mean... we know you’ve got tons of friends at the other camp. And you could pick anyone at Camp Jupiter now. If we’re not part of the eight, we’d understand-”  
  
“Are you kidding?” I said. “You think I’d leave my team behind? After surviving Fleecy’s wheat germ, running from cannibals, and hiding under blue giant butts in Alaska? Come on!”  
  
The tension broke. All three of us started cracking up, maybe a little too much, but it was a relief to be alive, with the warm sun shining, and not worrying - at least for the moment - about sinister faces appearing in the shadows of the hills.  
  
Hazel took a deep breath. “The prophecy Ella gave us - about the child of wisdom, and the mark of Athena burning through Rome...do you know what that’s about?”  
  
Percy remembered my dream. Juno had warned that Annabeth had a difficult job ahead of her, and that she’d cause trouble for the quest. I couldn’t believe that, but still... it worried me.  
  
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I think there’s more to the prophecy. Maybe Ella can remember the rest of it.”  
  
Frank slipped his book into his pocket. “We need to take her with us - I mean, for her own safety. If Octavian finds out Ella has the Sibylline Books memorized...”  
  
I shuddered. Octavian used prophecies to keep his power at camp. Now that I had taken away his chance at praetor, Octavian would be looking for other ways to exert influence. If he got hold of Ella...  
  
“You’re right,” I said. “We’ve got to protect her. I just hope we can convince her-”  
  
“Percy!” Tyson came running across the forum, Ella fluttering behind him with a scroll in her talons. When they reached the fountain, Ella dropped the scroll in my lap.  
  
“Special delivery,” she said. “From an aura. A wind spirit. Yes, Ella got a special delivery.”  
  
“Good morning, brothers!” Tyson had hay in his hair and peanut butter in his teeth. “The scroll is from Leo. He is funny and small.”  
  
The scroll looked unremarkable, but when I spread it across his lap, a video recording flickered on the parchment. A kid in Greek armor grinned up at them. He had an impish face, curly black hair, and wild eyes, like he’d just had several cups of coffee. He was sitting in a dark room with timber walls like a ship’s cabin. Oil lamps swung back and forth on the ceiling. Next to him stood a familiar face to me - Cathy.  
  
Hazel stifled a scream.  
  
“What?” Frank asked. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Slowly, I realized the curly-haired kid looked familiar - and not just from my dreams. I’d seen that face in an old photo.  
  
“Hey!” said the guy in the video. I heard Bohemian Rhapsody playing int the background, and Cathy was moving her shoulders along to the Galileo's a little bit. “Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo speaking. I’m the-” He looked to Cathy and asked: “What’s my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or-” "Repair boy." She grinned teasingly, and I realized the crinkles around her eyes were back - I'd watched them slowly disappear after the war, and I was filled with brotherly love for her. "Millie~," the boy grumbled.  
  
A girl’s voice off-screen yelled, “She's right.”  
  
“Very funny, Piper,” Leo grumbled. "Ah, learn to take a joke, Blaze Of Glory." They smiled at each other for a moment - were they together? - and he turned back to the parchment screen. “So yeah, I’m... ah... supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we’re gonna be sailing toward you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We’d appreciate it if you’d not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out.”  
  
The parchment turned blank.  
  
“It can’t be,” Hazel said.  
  
“What?” Frank asked. “You know that guy?”  
  
Hazel looked like she’d seen a ghost. I understood why. I remembered the photo in Hazel’s abandoned house in Seward. The kid on the warship looked exactly like Hazel’s old boyfriend.  
  
“It’s Sammy Valdez,” she said. “But how…how—”  
  
“It can’t be,” I said. “That guy’s name is Leo. And it’s been seventy-something years. It has to be a...”  
  
I wanted to say a coincidence, but I couldn’t make myself believe that. Over the past few years I’d seen a lot of things: destiny, prophecy, magic, monsters, fate. But I’d never yet run across a coincidence.  
  
We were interrupted by horns blowing in the distance. The senators came marching into the forum with Reyna at the lead.  
  
“It’s meeting time,” I said. “Come on. We’ve got to warn them about the warship.”  
  
“Why should we trust these Greeks?” Octavian was saying.

He’d been pacing the senate floor for five minutes, going on and on, trying to counter what I had told them about Juno’s plan and the Prophecy of Eight.  
  
The senate shifted restlessly, but most of them were too afraid to interrupt Octavian while he was on a roll. Meanwhile the sun climbed in the sky, shining through the broken senate roof and giving Octavian a natural spotlight.  
  
The Senate House was packed. Queen Hylla, Frank, and Hazel sat in the front row with the senators. Veterans and ghosts filled the back rows. Even Tyson and Ella had been allowed to sit in the back. Tyson kept waving and grinning at me.  
  
Reyna and I occupied matching praetors’ chairs on the dais, which made me self-conscious. It wasn’t easy looking dignified wearing a bed sheet and a purple cape.  
  
“The camp is safe,” Octavian continued. “I’ll be the first to congratulate our heroes for bringing back the legion’s eagle and so much Imperial gold! Truly we have been blessed with good fortune. But why do more? Why tempt fate?”  
  
“I’m glad you asked.” I stood, taking the question as an opening.  
  
Octavian stammered, “I wasn’t-”  
  
“-part of the quest,” I said. “Yes, I know. And you’re wise to let me explain, since I was.”  
  
Some of the senators snickered. Octavian had no choice but to sit down and try not to look embarrassed.  
  
“Gaea is waking,” I said. “We’ve defeated two of her giants, but that’s only the beginning. The real war will take place in the old land of the gods. The quest will take us to Rome, and eventually to Greece.”  
  
An uneasy ripple spread through the senate.  
  
“I know, I know,” I said. “You’ve always thought of the Greeks as your enemies. And there’s a good reason for that. I think the gods have kept our two camps apart because whenever we meet, we fight. But that can change. It has to change if we’re to defeat Gaea. That’s what the Prophecy of Eight means. Eight demigods, Greek and Roman, will have to close the Doors of Death together.”  
  
“Ha!” shouted a Lar from the back row. “The last time a praetor tried to interpret the Prophecy of Eight, it was Michael Varus, who lost our eagle in Alaska! Why should we believe you now?”  
  
Octavian smiled smugly. Some of his allies in the senate began nodding and grumbling. Even some of the veterans looked uncertain.  
  
“I carried Juno across the Tiber,” I reminded them, speaking as firmly as I could. “She told me that the Prophecy of Eight is coming to pass. Mars also appeared to you in person. Do you think two of your most important gods would appear at camp if the situation wasn’t serious?”

“He’s right,” Gwen said from the second row. “I, for one, trust Percy’s word. Greek or not, he restored the honor of the legion. You saw him on the battlefield last night. Would anyone here say he is not a true hero of Rome?”  
  
Nobody argued. A few nodded in agreement.  
  
Reyna stood. I watched her anxiously. Her opinion could change everything - for better or worse.  
  
“You claim this is a combined quest,” she said. “You claim Juno intends for us to work with this- this other group, Camp Half-Blood. Yet the Greeks have been our enemies for eons. They are known for their deceptions.”  
  
“Maybe so,” I said. “But enemies can become friends. A week ago, would you have thought Romans and Amazons would be fighting side by side?”  
  
Queen Hylla laughed. “He’s got a point.”  
  
“The demigods of Camp Half-Blood have already been working with Camp Jupiter,” I said. “We just didn’t realize it. During the Titan War last summer, while you were attacking Mount Othrys, we were defending Mount Olympus in Manhattan. I fought Kronos myself.”  
  
Reyna backed up, almost tripping over her toga. “You… what?”  
  
“I know it’s hard to believe,” I said. “But I think I’ve earned your trust. I’m on your side. Hazel and Frank - I’m sure they’re meant to go with me on this quest. The other four are on their way from Camp Half-Blood right now. One of them is Jason Grace, your old praetor.”  
  
“Oh, come on!” Octavian shouted. “He’s making things up, now.”  
  
Reyna frowned. “It is a lot to believe. Jason is coming back with a bunch of Greek demigods? You say they’re going to appear in the sky in a heavily armed warship, but we shouldn’t be worried.”  
  
“Yes.” I looked over the rows of nervous, doubtful spectators. “Just let them land. Hear them out. Jason will backup everything I’m telling you. I swear it on my life.”  
  
“On your life?” Octavian looked meaningfully at the senate. “We will remember that, if this turns out to be a trick.”  
  
Right on cue, a messenger rushed into the Senate House, gasping as if he’d run all the way from camp. “Praetors! I’m sorry to interrupt, but our scouts report-”  
  
“Ship!” Tyson said happily, pointing at the hole in the ceiling. “Yay!  
  
Sure enough, a Greek warship appeared out of the clouds, about a half a mile away, descending toward the Senate House. As it got closer, I could see bronze shields glinting along the sides, billowing sails, and a familiar-looking figurehead shaped like a metal dragon. On the tallest mast, a big white flag of truce snapped in the wind.  
  
The Argo II. It was the most incredible ship he’d ever seen.  
  
“Praetors!” the messenger cried. “What are your orders?”  
  
Octavian shot to his feet. “You need to ask?” His face was red with rage. He was strangling his teddy bear. “The omens are horrible! This is a trick, a deception. Beware Greeks bearing gifts!”  
  
He jabbed a finger at me. “His friends are attacking in a warship. He has led them here. We must attack!”  
  
“No,” I said firmly. “You all raised me as praetor for a reason. I will fight to defend this camp with my life. But these aren’t enemies. I say we stand ready, but do not attack. Let them land. Let them speak. If it is a trick, then I will fight with you, as I did last night. But it is not a trick.”  
  
All eyes turned toward Reyna.  
  
She studied the approaching warship. Her expression hardened. If she vetoed Percy’s orders... well, he didn’t know what would happen. Chaos and confusion, at the very least.  
  
Most likely, the Romans would follow her lead. She’d been their leader much longer than me.  
  
“Hold your fire,” Reyna said. “But have the legion stand ready. Percy Jackson is your duly chosen praetor. We will trust this word - unless we are given clear reason not to. Senators, let us adjourn to the forum and meet our... new friends.”  
  
The senators stampeded out of the auditorium - whether from excitement or panic, I wasn’t sure. Tyson ran after them, yelling, “Yay! Yay!” with Ella fluttering around his head.  
  
Octavian gave me a disgusted look, then threw down his teddy bear and followed the crowd.  
  
Reyna stood at my shoulder.  
  
“I support you, Percy,” she said. “I trust your judgment. But for all our sakes, I hope we can keep the peace between our campers and your Greek friends.”  
  
“We will,” I promised. “You’ll see.”  
  
She glanced up at the warship. Her expression turned a little wistful. “You say Jason is aboard... I hope that’s true. I’ve missed him.”  
  
She marched outside, leaving me alone with Hazel and Frank.  
  
“They’re coming down right in the forum,” Frank said nervously. “Terminus is going to have a heart attack.”  
  
“Percy,” Hazel said, “you swore on your life. Romans take that seriously. If anything goes wrong, even by accident, Octavian is going to kill you. You know that, right?”  
  
I smiled. He knew the stakes were high. I knew this day could go horribly wrong. But I also knew that Annabeth was on that ship. If things went right, this would be the best day of my life.  
  
I threw one arm around Hazel and one arm around Frank.  
  
“Come on,” I said. “Let me introduce you to my other family.”


	19. Chapter 19

**ANNABETH**

Until I met the exploding statue, I thought I was prepared for anything.  
  
I’d paced the deck of our flying warship, the Argo II, checking and double-checking the ballistae to make sure they were locked down. I confirmed that the white “We come in peace” flag was flying from the mast. I reviewed the plan with the rest of the crew - and the backup plan, and the backup plan for the backup plan.  
  
Most important, I pulled aside our war-crazed chaperone, Coach Gleeson Hedge, and encouraged him to take the morning off in his cabin and watch reruns of mixed martial arts championships. The last thing we needed as we flew a magical Greek trireme into a potentially hostile Roman camp was a middle-aged satyr in gym clothes waving a club and yelling “Die!”  
  
Everything seemed to be in order. Even that mysterious chill I’d been feeling since the ship launched had dissipated, at least for now.  
  
The warship descended through the clouds, but I couldn’t stop second-guessing herself. What if this was a bad idea? What if the Romans panicked and attacked them on sight?  
  
The Argo II definitely did not look friendly. Two hundred feet long, with a bronze-plated hull, mounted repeating crossbows fore and aft, a flaming metal dragon for a figurehead, and two rotating ballistae amidships that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete... well, it wasn’t the most appropriate ride for a meet-and-greet with the neighbors.  
  
I had tried to give the Romans a heads-up. I’d asked Leo to send one of his special inventions - a holographic scroll - to alert our friends inside the camp. Hopefully the message had gotten through. Leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull -  _WASSUP_? with a smiley face - but I vetoed the idea. I wasn’t sure the Romans had a sense of humor.  
  
Too late to turn back now.  
  
The clouds broke around their hull, revealing the gold-and-green carpet of the Oakland Hills below them. I gripped one of the bronze shields that lined the starboard rail.  
  
My four crewmates took their places.  
  
On the stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and wrestling levers. Most helmsmen would’ve been satisfied with a pilot’s wheel or a tiller. Leo had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls from a Learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could turn the ship by pulling on the throttle, fire weapons by sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD.

Cathy was humming to herself next to me, looking nervous as well. When she apologized for holding a grudge against me and Percy for the war and it's casualties, I forgave her almost immediately - I'd missed her as my friend. She'd donned her regular all-black - a tank top, skinny jeans and a vest, with her regular combat boots and skull necklace - and had put on purple lipstick instead of the usual black or red just for the occasion. With her quiver strapped on, her new bow in hand - the old one had broken on her quest, so now she was using her deceased half-brother Michael's old bow - and two different daggers strapped to her thigh and calf, she looked a little too threatening, but it was better than her first choice for a quest, which involved a leather jacker, an emergency silver pocket knife strapped to her wrist and her twin daggers hidden in her boots.  
  
Piper paced back and forth between the mainmast and the ballistae, practicing her lines.  
  
“Lower your weapons,” she murmured. “We just want to talk.”  
  
Her charmspeak was so powerful, the words flowed over me, filling me with the desire to drop my dagger and have a nice long chat.  
  
For a child of Aphrodite, I tried hard to play down her beauty. Today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn-out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink Hello Kitty designs. (Maybe as a joke, though you could never be sure with Piper.) Her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle’s feather.  
  
Then there was Piper’s boyfriend - Jason. He stood at the bow on the raised crossbow platform, where the Romans could easily spot him. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his golden sword. Otherwise he looked calm for a guy who was making himself a target. Over his jeans and orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, he’d donned a toga and a purple cloak - symbols of his old rank as praetor. With his wind-ruffled blond hair and his icy blue eyes, he looked ruggedly handsome and in control - just like a son of Jupiter should. He’d grown up at Camp Jupiter, so hopefully his familiar face would make the Romans hesitant to blow the ship out of the sky.  
  
I tried to hide it, but I still didn’t completely trust the guy. He acted too perfect - always following the rules, always doing the honorable thing. He even looked too perfect. In the back of my mind, I had a nagging thought: What if this is a trick and he betrays us? What if we sail into Camp Jupiter, and he says, _Hey, Romans! Check out these prisoners and this cool ship I brought you!_  
  
I doubted that would happen. Still, I couldn’t look at him without getting a bitter taste in my mouth. He’d been part of Hera’s forced “exchange program” to introduce the two camps. Her Most Annoying Majesty, Queen of Olympus, had convinced the other gods that their two sets of children - Roman and Greek - had to combine forces to save the world from the evil goddess Gaea, who was awakening from the earth, and her horrible children the giants.  
  
Without warning, Hera had plucked up Percy Jackson, my boyfriend, wiped his memory, and sent him to the Roman camp. In exchange, the Greeks had gotten Jason. None of that was Jason’s fault; but every time I saw him, I remembered how much I missed Percy.  
  
Percy... who was somewhere below us right now.  
  
 _Oh, gods._ Panic welled up inside me. I forced it down. I couldn’t afford to get overwhelmed.  
  
 _I’m a child of Athena_ , I told myself. _I have to stick to my plan and not get distracted._  
  
I felt it again - that familiar shiver, as if a psychotic snowman had crept up behind me and was breathing down my neck. I turned, but no one was there.  
  
Must be the nerves. Even in a world of gods and monsters, I couldn’t believe a new warship would be haunted. The Argo II was well protected. The Celestial bronze shields along the rail were enchanted to ward off monsters, and our onboard satyr, Coach Hedge, would have sniffed out any intruders.  
  
I wished I could pray to my mother for guidance, but that wasn’t possible now. Not after last month, when I'd had that horrible encounter with my mom and gotten the worst present of my life...  
  
The cold pressed closer. I thought I heard a faint voice in the wind, laughing. Every muscle in my body tensed. Something was about to go terribly wrong.  
  
I almost ordered Leo to reverse course. Then, in the valley below, horns sounded. The Romans had spotted them.  
  
I thought she knew what to expect. Jason had described Camp Jupiter to her in great detail. Still, I had trouble believing my eyes. Ringed by the Oakland Hills, the valley was at least twice the size of Camp Half-Blood. A small river snaked around one side and curled toward the center like a capital letter G, emptying into a sparkling blue lake.  
  
Directly below the ship, nestled at the edge of the lake, the city of New Rome gleamed in the sunlight. I recognized landmarks Jason had told me about - the hippodrome, the coliseum, the temples and parks, the neighborhood of Seven Hills with its winding streets, colorful villas, and flowering gardens.  
  
I saw evidence of the Romans’ recent battle with an army of monsters. The dome was cracked open on a building she guessed was the Senate House. The forum’s broad plaza was pitted with craters. Some fountains and statues were in ruins.  
  
Dozens of kids in togas were streaming out of the Senate House to get a better view of the Argo II. More Romans emerged from the shops and cafés, gawking and pointing as the ship descended.  
  
About half a mile to the west, where the horns were blowing, a Roman fort stood on a hill. It looked just like the illustrations I had seen in military history books - with a defensive trench lined with spikes, high walls, and watchtowers armed with scorpion ballistae. Inside, perfect rows of white barracks lined the main road - the Via Principalis.  
  
A column of demigods emerged from the gates, their armor and spears glinting as they hurried toward the city. In the midst of their ranks was an actual war elephant.  
  
I wanted to land the Argo II before those troops arrived, but the ground was still several hundred feet below. I scanned the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Percy.  
  
Then something behind me went _BOOM_!  
  
The explosion almost knocked me overboard. I whirled and found myself eye to eye with an angry statue.  
  
“Unacceptable!” he shrieked.  
  
Apparently he had exploded into existence, right there on the deck. Sulfurous yellow smoke rolled off his shoulders. Cinders popped around his curly hair. From the waist down, he was nothing but a square marble pedestal. From the waist up, he was a muscular human figure in a carved toga.  
  
“I will not have weapons inside the Pomerian Line!” he announced in a fussy teacher voice. “I certainly will not have Greeks!”  
  
Jason shot me a look that said, _I’ve got this._  
  
“Terminus,” he said. “It’s me. Jason Grace.”  
  
“Oh, I remember you, Jason!” Terminus grumbled. “I thought you had better sense than to consort with the enemies of Rome!”  
  
“But they’re not enemies-”  
  
“That’s right,” Piper jumped in. “We just want to talk. If we could-”  
  
“Ha!” snapped the statue. “Don’t try that charmspeak on me, young lady. And put down that dagger before I slap it out of your hands!”  
  
Piper glanced at her bronze dagger, which she’d apparently forgotten she was holding. “Um... okay. But how would you slap it? You don’t have any arms.”  
  
“Impertinence!” There was a sharp _POP_ and a flash of yellow. Piper yelped and dropped the dagger, which was now smoking and sparking.  
  
“Lucky for you I’ve just been through a battle,” Terminus announced. “If I were at full strength, I would’ve blasted this flying monstrosity out of the sky already!”  
  
“Hold up.” Leo stepped forward, wagging his Wii controller. “Did you just call my ship a monstrosity? I know you didn’t do that.”  
  
Cathy went over and put her hand on his chest - both to stop him from going further and to calm him down - but the idea that Leo might attack the statue with his gaming device was enough to snap Annabeth out of her shock.  
  
“Let’s all calm down.” I raised my hands to show I had no weapons. “I take it you’re Terminus, the god of boundaries. Jason told me you protect the city of New Rome, right? I’m Annabeth Chase, daughter of-”  
  
“Oh, I know who you are!” The statue glared at her with its blank white eyes. “A child of Athena, Minerva’s Greek form. Scandalous! You Greeks have no sense of decency. We Romans know the proper place for that goddess.”  
  
I clenched my jaw. This statue wasn’t making it easy to be diplomatic. “What exactly do you mean, that goddess? And what’s so scandalous about-”  
  
“Right!” Jason interrupted. “Anyway, Terminus, we’re here on a mission of peace. We’d love permission to land so we can-”  
  
“Impossible!” the god squeaked. “Lay down your weapons and surrender! Leave my city immediately!”  
  
“Which is it?” Leo asked. “Surrender, or leave?”  
  
“Both!” Terminus said. “Surrender, then leave. I am slapping your face for asking such a stupid question, you ridiculous boy! Do you feel that?”  
  
“Wow.” Leo studied Terminus with professional interest. “You’re wound up pretty tight. You got any gears in there that need loosening? I could take a look.”  
  
He exchanged the Wii controller for a screwdriver from his magic tool belt and tapped the statue’s pedestal.

“Stop that!” Terminus insisted. Another small explosion made Leo drop his screwdriver. “Weapons are not allowed on Roman soil inside the Pomerian Line.”  
  
“The what?” Piper asked.  
  
“City limits,” Jason translated.  
  
“And this entire ship is a weapon!” Terminus said. “You cannot land!”  
  
Down in the valley, the legion reinforcements were halfway to the city. The crowd in the forum was over a hundred strong now. I scanned the faces and.... _oh, gods._  I saw him. He was walking toward the ship with his arms around two other kids like they were best buddies - a stout boy with a black buzz cut, and a girl wearing a Roman cavalry helmet. Percy looked so at ease, so happy. He wore a purple cape just like Jason’s - the mark of a praetor.  
  
My heart did a gymnastics routine.  
  
“Leo, stop the ship,” I ordered.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard me. Keep us right where we are.”  
  
Leo pulled out his controller and yanked it upward. All ninety oars froze in place. The ship stopped sinking.  
  
“Terminus,” Annabeth said, “there’s no rule against hovering over New Rome, is there?”  
  
The statue frowned. “Well, no...”  
  
“We can keep the ship aloft,” I said. “We’ll use a rope ladder to reach the forum. That way, the ship won’t be on Roman soil. Not technically.”  
  
The statue seemed to ponder this. I wondered if he was scratching his chin with imaginary hands.  
  
“I like technicalities,” he admitted. “Still...”  
  
“All our weapons will stay aboard the ship,” Annabeth promised. “I assume the Romans - even those reinforcements marching toward us - will also have to honor your rules inside the Pomerian Line if you tell them to?”  
  
“Of course!” Terminus said. “Do I look like I tolerate rule breakers?”  
  
“Uh, Annabeth...” Leo said. “You sure this is a good idea?”  
  
I closed my fists to keep them from shaking. That cold feeling was still there. It floated just behind me, and now that Terminus was no longer shouting and causing explosions, I thought I could hear the presence laughing, as if it was delighted by the bad choices I was making.  
  
But Percy was down there... he was so close. I had to reach him.  
  
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “No one will be armed. We can talk in peace. Terminus will make sure each side obeys the rules.” I looked at the marble statue. “Do we have an agreement?”  
  
Terminus sniffed. “I suppose. For now. You may climb down your ladder to New Rome, daughter of Athena. Please try not to destroy my town.”  
  
A sea of hastily assembled demigods parted for me as I walked through the forum. Some looked tense, some nervous. Some were bandaged from their recent battle with the giants, but no one was armed. No one attacked.  
  
Entire families had gathered to see the newcomers. I saw couples with babies, toddlers clinging to their parents’ legs, even some elderly folks in a combination of Roman robes and modern clothes. Were all of them demigods? I suspected so, though I’d never seen a place like this. At Camp Half-Blood, most demigods were teens. If they survived long enough to graduate from high school, they either stayed on as counselors or left to start lives as best they could in the mortal world. Here, it was an entire multigenerational community.  
  
At the far end of the crowd, I spotted Tyson the Cyclops and Percy’s hellhound, Mrs. O’Leary - who had been the first scouting party from Camp Half-Blood to reach Camp Jupiter. They looked to be in good spirits. Tyson waved and grinned. He was wearing an SPQR banner like a giant bib.  
  
Some part of my mind registered how beautiful the city was - the smells from the bakeries, the gurgling fountains, the flowers blooming in the gardens. And the architecture... gods, the architecture—gilded marble columns, dazzling mosaics, monumental arches, and terraced villas.  
  
In front of me, the demigods made way for a girl in full Roman armor and a purple cape. Dark hair tumbled across her shoulders. Her eyes were as black as obsidian.  
  
Reyna.  
  
Jason had described her well. Even without that, I would have singled her out as the leader. Medals decorated her armor. She carried herself with such confidence the other demigods backed away and averted their gaze.  
  
I recognized something else in her face, too - in the hard set of her mouth and the deliberate way she raised her chin like she was ready to accept any challenge. Reyna was forcing a look of courage, while holding back a mixture of hopefulness and worry and fear that she couldn’t show in public.  
  
I knew that expression. I saw it every time I looked in a mirror.  
  
The two girls considered each other. My friends fanned out on either side. The Romans murmured Jason’s name, staring at him in awe.  
  
Then someone else appeared from the crowd, and my vision tunneled.  
  
Percy smiled at her - that sarcastic, troublemaker smile that had annoyed me for years but eventually had become endearing. His sea-green eyes were as gorgeous as I remembered. His dark hair was swept to one side, like he’d just come from a walk on the beach. He looked even better than he had six months ago - tanner and taller, leaner and more muscular.  
  
I was too stunned to move. I felt that if I got any closer to him, all the molecules in my body might combust. I’d secretly had a crush on him since we were twelve years old. Last summer, I’d fallen for him hard. We’d been a happy couple for four months - and then he’d disappeared.  
  
During our separation, something had happened to my feelings. They’d grown painfully intense- like I'd been forced to withdraw from a life-saving medication. Now I wasn’t sure which was more excruciating - living with that horrible absence, or being with him again.  
  
The praetor Reyna straightened. With apparent reluctance, she turned toward Jason.  
  
“Jason Grace, my former colleague...” She spoke the word colleague like it was a dangerous thing. “I welcome you home. And these, your friends-”  
  
I didn’t mean to, but I surged forward. Percy rushed toward me at the same time. The crowd tensed. Some reached for swords that weren’t there.  
  
Percy threw his arms around me. We kissed, and for a moment nothing else mattered. An asteroid could have hit the planet and wiped out all life, and I wouldn’t have cared.  
  
Percy smelled of ocean air. His lips were salty.  
  
 _Seaweed Brain,_  I thought giddily.  
  
Percy pulled away and studied my face. “Gods, I never thought-”  
  
I grabbed his wrist and flipped him over my shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, “Hold! Stand down!”  
  
I put my knee on Percy’s chest. I pushed my forearm against his throat. I didn’t care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest - a tumor of worry and bitterness that I’d been carrying around since last autumn.  
  
“If you ever leave me again,” I said, my eyes stinging, “I swear to all the gods-”  
  
Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside me.  
  
“Consider me warned,” Percy said. “I missed you, too.”  
  
I rose and helped him to his feet. I wanted to kiss him again so badly, but I managed to restrain myself.  
  
Jason cleared his throat. “So, yeah... It’s good to be back.”  
  
He introduced Reyna to Piper, who looked a little miffed that she hadn’t gotten to say the lines she’d been practicing, then to Leo, who grinned and flashed a peace sign, throwing his arm around Cathy. When she got introduced, she held her head high, but I could see her mask of coldness had faded significantly since I'd last seen her.  
  
“And this is Annabeth,” Jason said. “Uh, normally she doesn’t judo-flip people.”  
  
Reyna’s eyes sparkled. “You sure you’re not a Roman, Annabeth? Or an Amazon?”  
  
I didn’t know if that was a compliment, but I held out my hand. “I only attack my boyfriend like that,” I promised. “Pleased to meet you.”  
  
Reyna clasped her hand firmly. “It seems we have a lot to discuss. Centurions!”  
  
A few of the Roman campers hustled forward - apparently the senior officers. Two kids appeared at Percy’s side, the same ones I had seen him chumming around with earlier. The burly Asian guy with the buzz cut was about fifteen. He was cute in a sort of oversized-cuddly-panda-bear way. The girl was younger, maybe thirteen, with amber eyes and chocolate skin and long curly hair. Her cavalry helmet was tucked under her arm.  
  
I could tell from their body language that they felt close to Percy. They stood next to him protectively, like they’d already shared many adventures. I fought down a twinge of jealousy. Was it possible Percy and this girl... no. The chemistry between the three of them wasn’t like that. I had spent my whole life learning to read people. It was a survival skill. If I had to guess, I’d say the big Asian guy was the girl’s boyfriend, though I suspected they hadn’t been together long.  
  
There was one thing I didn’t understand: what was the girl staring at? She kept frowning in Cathy and Leo’s direction, like she recognized one of them and the memory was painful.  
  
Meanwhile, Reyna was giving orders to her officers. “... tell the legion to stand down. Dakota, alert the spirits in the kitchen. Tell them to prepare a welcome feast. And, Octavian-”  
  
“You’re letting these intruders into the camp?” A tall guy with stringy blond hair elbowed his way forward. “Reyna, the security risks-”  
  
“We’re not taking them to the camp, Octavian.” Reyna flashed him a stern look. “We’ll eat here, in the forum.”  
  
“Oh, much better,” Octavian grumbled. He seemed to be the only one who didn’t defer to Reyna as his superior, despite the fact that he was scrawny and pale and for some reason had three teddy bears hanging from his belt. “You want us to relax in the shadow of their warship.”  
  
“These are our guests.” Reyna clipped off every word. “We will welcome them, and we will talk to them. As augur, you should burn an offering to thank the gods for bringing Jason back to us safely.”  
  
“Good idea,” Percy put in. “Go burn your bears, Octavian.”  
  
Reyna looked like she was trying not to smile. “You have my orders. Go.”  
  
The officers dispersed. Octavian shot Percy a look of absolute loathing. Then he gave me a suspicious once-over and stalked away.  
  
Percy slipped his hand into mine. “Don’t worry about Octavian,” he said. “Most of the Romans are good people - like Frank and Hazel here, and Reyna. We’ll be fine.”  
  
I felt as if someone had draped a cold washcloth across my neck. I heard that whispering laughter again, as if the presence had followed me from the ship.  
  
I looked up at the Argo II. Its massive bronze hull glittered in the sunlight. Part of me wanted to kidnap Percy right now, climb on board, and get out of here while we still could.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong. And there was no way I would ever risk losing Percy again.  
  
“We’ll be fine,” I repeated, trying to believe it.  
  
“Excellent,” Reyna said. She turned to Jason, and I thought there was a hungry sort of gleam in her eyes. “Let’s talk, and we can have a proper reunion.”  
  
* * * * *

I wished I had an appetite, because the Romans knew how to eat.  
  
Sets of couches and low tables were carted into the forum until it resembled a furniture showroom. Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughing while wind spirits - aurae - swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizzas, sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh-baked cookies. Drifting through the crowd were purple ghosts - Lares - in togas and legionnaire armor. Around the edges of the feast, satyrs (no, fauns, I thought) trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change. In the nearby fields, the war elephant frolicked with Mrs. O’Leary, and children played tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits.  
  
The whole scene was so familiar yet so completely alien that it gave me vertigo.  
  
All I wanted to do was be with Percy - preferably alone. I knew I would have to wait. If our quest was going to succeed, we needed these Romans, which meant getting to know them and building some goodwill.  
  
Reyna and a few of her officers (including the blond kid Octavian, freshly back from burning a teddy bear for the gods) sat with me and my crew. Percy joined us with his two new friends, Frank and Hazel.  
  
As a tornado of food platters settled onto the table, Percy leaned over and whispered, “I want to show you around New Rome. Just you and me. The place is incredible.”  
  
I should’ve felt thrilled. _Just you and me_ was exactly what I wanted. Instead, resentment swelled in my throat. How could Percy talk so enthusiastically about this place? What about Camp Half-Blood - our camp, our home?  
  
I tried not to stare at the new marks on Percy’s forearm - an SPQR tattoo like Jason’s. At Camp Half-Blood, demigods got bead necklaces to commemorate years of training. Here, the Romans burned a tattoo into your flesh, as if to say: _You belong to us. Permanently._  
  
I swallowed back some biting comments. “Okay. Sure.”  
  
“I’ve been thinking,” he said nervously. “I had this idea-”  
  
He stopped as Reyna called a toast to friendship.  
  
After introductions all around, the Romans and my crew began exchanging stories. Jason explained how he’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood without his memory, and how he’d gone on a quest with Cathy, Piper and Leo to rescue the goddess Hera (or Juno, take your pick - she was equally annoying in Greek or Roman) from imprisonment at the Wolf House in northern California.  
  
“Impossible!” Octavian broke in. “That’s our most sacred place. If the giants had imprisoned a goddess there-”  
  
“They would’ve destroyed her,” Cathy said coldly, probably not happy to learn this weird dude was her distant family. “And blamed it on the Greeks, and started a war between the camps." "Now, be quiet and let Jason finish,” Piper added.  
  
Octavian opened his mouth, but no sound came out. I really loved Piper’s charmspeak. I noticed Reyna looking back and forth between Jason and Piper, her brow creased, as if just beginning to realize the two of them were a couple.  
  
“So,” Jason continued, “that’s how we found out about the earth goddess Gaea. She’s still half asleep, but she’s the one freeing the monsters from Tartarus and raising the giants. Porphyrion, the big leader dude we fought at the Wolf House: he said he was retreating to the ancient lands - Greece itself. He plans on awakening Gaea and destroying the gods by... what did he call it? Pulling up their roots.”  
  
Percy nodded thoughtfully. “Gaea’s been busy over here, too. We had our own encounter with Queen Dirt Face.”  
  
Percy recounted his side of the story. He talked about waking up at the Wolf House with no memories except for one name - Annabeth.  
  
When I heard that, I had to try hard not to cry. Percy told us how he’d traveled to Alaska with Frank and Hazel— - how they’d defeated the giant Alcyoneus, freed the death god Thanatos, and returned with the lost golden eagle standard of the Roman camp to repel an attack by the giants’ army.  
  
When Percy had finished, Jason whistled appreciatively. “No wonder they made you praetor.”  
  
Octavian snorted. “Which means we now have three praetors! The rules clearly state we can only have two!”  
  
“On the bright side,” Percy said, “both Jason and I outrank you, Octavian. So we can both tell you to shut up.”  
  
Octavian turned as purple as a Roman T-shirt. Jason gave Percy a fist bump.  
  
Even Reyna managed a smile, though her eyes were stormy.  
  
“We’ll have to figure out the extra praetor problem later,” she said. “Right now we have more serious issues to deal with.”  
  
“I’ll step aside for Jason,” Percy said easily. “It’s no biggie.”  
  
“No biggie?” Octavian choked. “The praetorship of Rome is no biggie?”  
  
Percy ignored him and turned to Jason. “You’re Thalia Grace’s brother, huh? Wow. You guys look nothing alike.”  
  
“Yeah, I noticed,” Jason said. “Anyway, thanks for helping my camp while I was gone. You did an awesome job.”  
  
“Back at you,” Percy said.  
  
I kicked his shin. I hated to interrupt a budding bromance, but Reyna was right: we had serious things to discuss. “We should talk about the Great Prophecy. It sounds like the Romans are aware of it too?”  
  
Reyna nodded. “We call it the Prophecy of Eight. Octavian, you have it committed to memory?”  
  
“Of course,” he said. “But, Reyna-”  
  
“Recite it, please. In English, not Latin.”  
  
Octavian sighed. “Eight half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall-”  
  
“An oath to keep with a final breath,” I continued. “And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.”  
  
Everyone stared at her - except for Leo, who had constructed a pinwheel out of aluminum foil taco wrappers and was sticking it into passing wind spirits. Cathy gently slapped his arm to return his attention to the matter at hand.  
  
I wasn’t sure why I had blurted out the lines of the prophecy. I’d just felt compelled.  
  
The big kid, Frank, sat forward, staring at her in fascination, as if I’d grown a third eye. “Is it true you’re a child of Min- I mean, Athena?”  
  
“Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling defensive. “Why is that such a surprise?”  
  
Octavian scoffed. “If you’re truly a child of the wisdom goddess-”  
  
“Enough,” Reyna snapped. “Annabeth is what she says. She’s here in peace. Besides...” She gave me a look of grudging respect. “Percy has spoken highly of you.”  
  
The undertones in Reyna’s voice took me a moment to decipher. Percy looked down, suddenly interested in his cheeseburger.  
  
My face felt hot. Oh, gods... Reyna had tried to make a move on Percy. That explained the tinge of bitterness, maybe even envy, in her words. Percy had turned her down for me.  
  
At that moment, I forgave my ridiculous boyfriend for everything he’d ever done wrong. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but I commanded herself to stay cool.  
  
“Uh, thanks,” I told Reyna. “At any rate, some of the prophecy is becoming clear. Foes bearing arms to the Doors of Death... that means Romans and Greeks. We have to combine forces to find those doors.”  
  
Hazel, the girl with the cavalry helmet and the long curly hair, picked up something next to her plate. It looked like a large ruby; but before I could be sure, Hazel slipped it into the pocket of her denim shirt.  
  
“My brother, Nico, went looking for the doors,” she said.  
  
“Wait.” Cathy's head snapped up. “Nico di Angelo? He’s your brother?” Her hand went to her black skull necklace - I knew it matched with his ring. The two were very close, basically siblings, and I knew it bothered her she hadn't heard of him in a while.  
  
Hazel nodded as if this were obvious. A dozen more questions crowded into my head, but it was already spinning like Leo’s pinwheel. I decided to let the matter go. “Okay. You were saying?”  
  
“He disappeared.” Hazel moistened her lips as Cathy tensed. “I’m afraid... I’m not sure, but I think something’s happened to him.”  
  
“We’ll look for him,” Percy promised. “We have to find the Doors of Death anyway. Thanatos told us we’d find both answers in Rome - like, the original Rome. That’s on the way to Greece, right?”  
  
“Thanatos told you this?” I tried to wrap my mind around that idea. “The death god?”  
  
I’d met many gods. I’d even been to the Underworld; but Percy’s story about freeing the incarnation of death itself really creeped me out.  
  
Percy took a bite of his burger. “Now that Death is free, monsters will disintegrate and return to Tartarus again like they used to. But as long as the Doors of Death are open, they’ll just keep coming back.”  
  
Piper twisted the feather in her hair. “Like water leaking through a dam,” she suggested.  
  
“Yeah.” Percy smiled. “We’ve got a dam hole.”  
  
“What?” Piper asked.  
  
“Nothing,” he said. “Inside joke. The point is we’ll have to find the doors and close them before we can head to Greece. It’s the only way we’ll stand a chance of defeating the giants and making sure they stay defeated.”  
  
Reyna plucked an apple from a passing fruit tray. She turned it in her fingers, studying the dark red surface. “You propose an expedition to Greece in your warship. You do realize that the ancient lands - and the Mare Nostrum - are dangerous?”  
  
“Mary who?” Leo asked.  
  
“Mare Nostrum,” Cathy explained. “Our Sea. It’s what the Ancient Romans called the Mediterranean.”  
  
Reyna nodded, obviously impressed. “The territory that was once the Roman Empire is not only the birthplace of the gods. It’s also the ancestral home of the monsters, Titans and giants... and worse things. As dangerous as travel is for demigods here in America, there it would be ten times worse.”  
  
“You said Alaska would be bad,” Percy reminded her. “We survived that.”  
  
Reyna shook her head. Her fingernails cut little crescents into the apple as she turned it. “Percy, traveling in the Mediterranean is a different level of danger altogether. It’s been off limits to Roman demigods for centuries. No hero in his right mind would go there.”  
  
“Then we’re good!” Leo grinned over the top of his pinwheel. “Because we’re all crazy, right? Besides, the Argo II is a top-of-the-line warship. She’ll get us through.”  
  
“We’ll have to hurry,” Jason added. “I don’t know exactly what the giants are planning, but Gaea is growing more conscious all the time. She’s invading dreams, appearing in weird places, summoning more and more powerful monsters. We have to stop the giants before they can wake her up fully.”

I shuddered. I’d had my own share of nightmares lately.  
  
“Eight half-bloods must answer the call,” I said. “It needs to be a mix from both our camps. Jason, Piper, Leo, Cathy and me. That’s five.”  
  
“And me,” Percy said. “Along with Hazel and Frank. That’s eight.”  
  
“What?” Octavian shot to his feet. “We’re just supposed to accept that? Without a vote in the senate? Without a proper debate? Without-”  
  
“Percy!” Tyson the Cyclops bounded toward them with Mrs. O’Leary at his heels. On the hellhound’s back sat the skinniest harpy I had ever seen - a sickly-looking girl with stringy red hair, a sackcloth dress, and red-feathered wings.  
  
I didn’t know where the harpy had come from, but my heart warmed to see Tyson in his tattered flannel and denim with the backward SPQR banner across his chest. I’d had some pretty bad experiences with Cyclopes, but Tyson was a sweetheart. He was also Percy’s half brother (long story), which made him almost like family.  
  
Tyson stopped by their couch and wrung his meaty hands. His big brown eye was full of concern. “Ella is scared,” he said.  
  
“N-n-no more boats,” the harpy muttered to herself, picking furiously at her feathers. “Titanic, Lusitania, Pax…boats are not for harpies.”  
  
Leo squinted. He looked at Hazel, who was seated next to him. “Did that chicken girl just compare my ship to the Titanic?”  
  
“She’s not a chicken.” Hazel averted her eyes, as if Leo made her nervous. “Ella’s a harpy. She’s just a little... high-strung.”  
  
“Ella is pretty,” Tyson said. “And scared. We need to take her away, but she will not go on the ship.”  
  
“No ships,” Ella repeated. She looked straight at Annabeth. “Bad luck. There she is. Wisdom’s daughter walks alone-”  
  
“Ella!” Frank stood suddenly. “Maybe it’s not the best time-”  
  
“The Mark of Athena burns through Rome,” Ella continued, cupping her hands over her ears and raising her voice. “Twins snuff out the angel’s breath, Who holds the key to endless death. Giants’ bane stands gold and pale, Won through pain from a woven jail.”  
  
The effect was like someone dropping a flash grenade on the table. Everyone stared at the harpy. No one spoke. My heart was pounding. The Mark of Athena... I resisted the urge to check my pocket, but I could feel the silver coin growing warmer - the cursed gift from her mother. _Follow the Mark of Athena. Avenge me._  
  
Around us, the sounds of the feast continued, but muted and distant, as if our little cluster of couches had slipped into a quieter dimension.  
  
Percy was the first to recover. He stood and took Tyson’s arm.  
  
“I know!” he said with feigned enthusiasm. “How about you take Ella to get some fresh air? You and Mrs. O’Leary-”  
  
“Hold on.” Octavian gripped one of his teddy bears, strangling it with shaking hands. His eyes fixed on Ella. “What was that she said? It sounded like-”  
  
“Ella reads a lot,” Frank blurted out. “We found her at a library.”  
  
“Yes!” Hazel said. “Probably just something she read in a book.”  
  
“Books,” Ella muttered helpfully. “Ella likes books.”  
  
Now that she’d said her piece, the harpy seemed more relaxed. She sat cross-legged on Mrs. O’Leary’s back, preening her wings.  
  
I gave Percy a curious glance. Obviously, he and Frank and Hazel were hiding something. Just as obviously, Ella had recited a prophecy - a prophecy that concerned her.  
  
Percy’s expression said, _Help_ , but I was too stunned to even move, let alone speak.  
  
“That was a prophecy,” Octavian insisted. “It sounded like a prophecy.”  
  
No one answered.  
  
I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but I understood that Percy was on the verge of big trouble. I locked eyes with Cathy, who laughed. To anyone who didn't know her, it can't have sounded fake.  
  
“Really, Octavian? Maybe harpies are different here, on the Roman side. Ours have just enough intelligence to clean cabins and cook lunches. Do yours usually foretell the future? Do you consult them for your auguries?”  
  
Her words had the intended effect. The Roman officers laughed nervously. Some sized up Ella, then looked at Octavian and snorted. The idea of a chicken lady issuing prophecies was apparently just as ridiculous to Romans as it was to Greeks.  
  
“I, uh...” Octavian dropped his teddy bear. “No, but-”  
  
“She’s just spouting lines from some book,” I added, “like Hazel suggested. Besides, we already have a real prophecy to worry about.”  
  
I turned to Tyson. “Percy’s right. Why don’t you take Ella and Mrs. O’Leary and shadow-travel somewhere for a while. Is Ella okay with that?”  
  
“‘Large dogs are good,’” Ella said. “Old Yeller, 1957, screenplay by Fred Gipson and William Tunberg.”  
  
I wasn’t sure how to take that answer, but Percy smiled like the problem was solved.  
  
“Great!” Percy said. “We’ll Iris-message you guys when we’re done and catch up with you later.”  
  
The Romans looked at Reyna, waiting for her ruling. I held my breath.  
  
Reyna had an excellent poker face. She studied Ella, but I couldn’t guess what she was thinking.  
  
“Fine,” the praetor said at last. “Go.”  
  
“Yay!” Tyson went around the couches and gave everyone a big hug - even Octavian, who didn’t look happy about it. Then he climbed on Mrs. O’Leary’s back with Ella, and the hellhound bounded out of the forum. They dove straight into a shadow on the Senate House wall and disappeared.  
  
“Well.” Reyna set down her uneaten apple. “Octavian is right about one thing. We must gain the senate’s approval before we let any of our legionnaires go on a quest - especially one as dangerous as you’re suggesting.”  
  
“This whole thing smells of treachery,” Octavian grumbled. “That trireme is not a ship of peace!”  
  
“Come aboard, man,” Leo offered. “I’ll give you a tour. You can steer the boat, and if you’re really good I’ll give you a little paper captain’s hat to wear.”  
  
Octavian’s nostrils flared. “How dare you-”  
  
“It’s a good idea,” Reyna said. “Octavian, go with him. See the ship. We’ll convene a senate meeting in one hour.”  
  
“But...” Octavian stopped. Apparently he could tell from Reyna’s expression that further arguing would not be good for his health. “Fine.”  
  
Leo got up. He turned to me, and his smile changed. It happened so quickly, I thought I’d imagined it; but just for a moment someone else seemed to be standing in Leo’s place, smiling coldly with a cruel light in his eyes. Then I blinked, and Leo was just regular old Leo again, with his usual impish grin.  
  
“Back soon,” he promised. “This is gonna be epic.”

"Wait, I'll go with you." Cathy started to get up, but Reyna's eyes turned to her. "No, I'd like to talk to you in a moment, please."  
  
A horrible chill settled over me. As Leo and Octavian headed for the rope ladder, I thought about calling them back - but how could I explain that? Tell everyone I was going crazy, seeing things and feeling cold? As Cathy looked at me, I knew she was thinking the same thing.  
  
The wind spirits began clearing the plates.  
  
“Uh, Reyna,” Jason said, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to show Piper around before the senate meeting. She’s never seen New Rome.”  
  
Reyna’s expression hardened.  
  
I wondered how Jason could be so dense. Was it possible he really didn’t understand how much Reyna liked him? It was obvious enough to me. Asking to show his new girlfriend around Reyna’s city was rubbing salt in a wound.  
  
“Of course,” Reyna said coldly.  
  
Percy took my hand. “Yeah, me, too. I’d like to show Annabeth-”  
  
“No,” Reyna snapped.  
  
Percy knit his eyebrows. “Sorry?”  
  
“I’d like a few words with Annabeth,” Reyna said. “Alone, with only her and Emily-Catherine. If you don’t mind, my fellow praetor.”  
  
Her tone made it clear she wasn’t really asking permission.  
  
The chill spread down my back. I wondered what Reyna was up to. Maybe the praetor didn’t like the idea of two guys who had rejected her giving their girlfriends tours of her city. Or maybe there was something she wanted to say in private. Either way, I was reluctant to be unarmed with the Roman leader, even if I had Cathy.  
  
“Come, daughter of Athena, daughter of Apollo.” Reyna rose from her couch. “Walk with me.”  
  
I wanted to hate New Rome.  But as an aspiring architect, I couldn’t help admiring the terraced gardens, the fountains and temples, the winding cobblestone streets and gleaming white villas. After the Titan War last summer, I’d gotten her dream job of redesigning the palaces of Mount Olympus. Now, walking through this miniature city, I kept thinking, _I should have made a dome like that. I love the way those columns lead into that courtyard._ Whoever designed New Rome had clearly poured a lot of time and love into the project.  
  
“We have the best architects and builders in the world,” Reyna said, as if reading my thoughts. “Rome always did, in the ancient times. Many demigods stay on to live here after their time in the legion. They go to our university. They settle down to raise families. Percy seemed interested in this fact.”  
  
I wondered what that meant. I must have scowled more fiercely than I realized, because Reyna laughed.  
  
“You’re a warrior, all right,” the praetor said. “You’ve got fire in your eyes.”  
  
“Sorry.” I tried to tone down the glare.  
  
“Don’t be. I’m the daughter of Bellona.”  
  
“Roman goddess of war?”  
  
Reyna nodded. She turned and whistled like she was hailing a cab. A moment later, two metal dogs raced toward them - automaton greyhounds, one silver and one gold. They brushed against Reyna’s legs and regarded us with glistening ruby eyes. The gold one immediately seemed interested in Cathy.  
  
“My pets,” Reyna explained. “Aurum and Argentum. You don’t mind if they walk with us?”  
  
Again, I got the feeling it wasn’t really a request. I noted that the greyhounds had teeth like steel arrowheads. Maybe weapons weren’t allowed inside the city, but Reyna’s pets could still tear us to pieces if they chose.  
  
Reyna led her to an outdoor café, where the waiter clearly knew her. He smiled and handed her a to-go cup, then offered one to me and one to Cathy.  
  
“Would you like some?” Reyna asked. “They make wonderful hot chocolate. Not really a Roman drink—”  
  
“But chocolate is universal,” Cathy said.  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
It was a warm June afternoon, but I accepted the cup with thanks. The three of us walked on, Reyna’s gold and silver dogs roaming nearby.  
  
“In our camp,” Reyna said, “Athena is Minerva. Are you familiar with how her Roman form is different?”  
  
I hadn’t really considered it before. I remembered the way Terminus had called Athena _that_ _goddess_ , as if she were scandalous. Octavian had acted like my very existence was an insult.

“I take it Minerva isn’t... uh, quite as respected here?”  
  
Reyna blew steam from her cup. “We respect Minerva. She’s the goddess of crafts and wisdom... but she isn’t really a goddess of war. Not for Romans. She’s also a maiden goddess, like Diana... the one you call Artemis."

"My aunt. I don't suspect you've met her adoptive children?" Reyna studied Cathy, and I could see confusion in her face behind the pokerface. "There's a group of young girls who swear off boys and join the Hunters of Artemis. They're sort of similar to the Amazons, ask your sister." The praetor nodded, and we kept walking.

"You won’t find any children of Minerva here. The idea that Minerva would have children - frankly, it’s a little shocking to us.”

“Oh.” I felt my face flush. I didn’t want to get into the details of Athena’s children - how we were born straight from the mind of the goddess, just as Athena herself had sprung from the head of Zeus. Talking about that always made me feel self-conscious, like I was some sort of freak. People usually asked me whether or not I had a belly button, since I had been born magically. Of course I had a belly button. I couldn’t explain how. I didn’t really want to know.  
  
“I understand that you Greeks don’t see things the same way,” Reyna continued. “But Romans take vows of maidenhood very seriously. The Vestal Virgins, for instance... if they broke their vows and fell in love with anyone, they would be buried alive. So the idea that a maiden goddess would have children-”  
  
“Got it.” My hot chocolate suddenly tasted like dust. No wonder the Romans had been giving me strange looks. “I’m not supposed to exist. And even if your camp had children of Minerva-”  
  
“They wouldn’t be like you,” Reyna said. “They might be craftsmen, artists, maybe advisers, but not warriors. Not leaders of dangerous quests.”  
  
I started to object that I wasn’t the leader of the quest. Not officially. But I wondered if my friends on the Argo II would agree. The past few days, they had been looking to me for orders - even Jason, who could have pulled rank as the son of Jupiter, and Coach Hedge, who didn’t take orders from anyone.  
  
“There’s more.” Reyna snapped her fingers, and her golden dog, Aurum, trotted over. The praetor stroked his ears. “The harpy Ella... it was a prophecy she spoke. We all know that, don’t we?”  
  
I swallowed. Something about Aurum’s ruby eyes made me uneasy. I had heard that dogs could smell fear, even detect changes in a human’s breathing and heartbeat. I didn’t know if that applied to magical metal dogs, but O decided it would be better to tell the truth.  
  
“It sounded like a prophecy,” I admitted. “But I’ve never met Ella before today, and I’ve never heard those lines exactly.”  
  
“I have,” Reyna murmured. “At least some of them-”  
  
A few yards away, the silver dog barked. A group of children spilled out of a nearby alleyway and gathered around Argentum, petting the dog and laughing, unfazed by its razor-sharp teeth.  
  
“We should move on,” Reyna said.  
  
We wound our way up the hill. The greyhounds followed, leaving the children behind. I kept glancing at Reyna’s face. A vague memory started tugging at me - the way Reyna brushed her hair behind her ear, the silver ring she wore with the torch and sword design.  
  
“We’ve met before,” I ventured. “You were younger, I think.”  
  
Reyna gave me a dry smile. “Very good. Percy didn’t remember me. Of course you spoke mostly with my older sister Hylla, who is now queen of the Amazons. She left just this morning, before you arrived. At any rate, when we last met, I was a mere handmaiden in the house of Circe.”  
  
“Circe...” I remembered her trip to the island of the sorceress. I’d been thirteen. Percy and I had washed ashore from the Sea of Monsters. Hylla had welcomed us. She had helped me get cleaned up and given me a beautiful new dress and a complete makeover. Then Circe had made her sales pitch: if I stayed on the island, I could have magical training and incredible power. I had been tempted, maybe just a little, until I realized the place was a trap, and Percy had been turned into a rodent. (That last part seemed funny afterward; but at the time, it had been terrifying.) As for Reyna... she’d been one of the servants who had combed my hair.  
  
“You...” I said in amazement. “And Hylla is queen of the Amazons? How did you two-?”  
  
“Long story,” Reyna said. “But I remember you well. You were brave. I’d never seen anyone refuse Circe’s hospitality, much less outwit her. It’s no wonder Percy cares for you.”  
  
Her voice was wistful. I thought it might be safer not to respond.  
  
We reached the top of the hill, where a terrace overlooked the entire valley.  
  
“This is my favorite spot,” Reyna said. “The Garden of Bacchus.”  
  
Grapevine trellises made a canopy overhead. Bees buzzed through honeysuckle and jasmine, which filled the afternoon air with a dizzying mix of perfumes. In the middle of the terrace stood a statue of Bacchus in a sort of ballet position, wearing nothing but a loincloth, his cheeks puffed out and lips pursed, spouting water into a fountain.  
  
Despite the worries, I almost laughed. I knew the god in his Greek form, Dionysus - or Mr. D, as we called him back at Camp Half-Blood. Seeing our cranky old camp director immortalized in stone, wearing a diaper and spewing water from his mouth, made me feel a little better.  
  
Reyna stopped at the edge of the terrace. The view was worth the climb. The whole city spread out below them like a 3-D mosaic. To the south, beyond the lake, a cluster of temples perched on a hill. To the north, an aqueduct marched toward the Berkeley Hills. Work crews were repairing a broken section, probably damaged in the recent battle.  
  
“I wanted to hear it from you two,” Reyna said.  
  
I turned. “Hear what from me?”  
  
“The truth,” Reyna said. “Convince me that I’m not making a mistake by trusting you. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about Camp Half-Blood. Your friend Piper has sorcery in her words. I spent enough time with Circe to know charmspeak when I hear it. I can’t trust what she says. And Jason... well, he has changed. He seems distant, no longer quite Roman.”  
  
The hurt in her voice was as sharp as broken glass. I wondered if I had sounded that way, all the months I’d spent searching for Percy. At least I’d found my boyfriend. Reyna had no one. She was responsible for running an entire camp all by herself. I could sense that Reyna wanted Jason to love her. But he had disappeared, only to come back with a new girlfriend. Meanwhile, Percy had risen to praetor, but he had rebuffed Reyna too. Now I had come to take him away. Reyna would be left alone again, shouldering a job meant for two people.  
  
When I had arrived at Camp Jupiter, I’d been prepared to negotiate with Reyna or even fight her if needed. I hadn’t been prepared to feel sorry for her.  
  
I kept that feeling hidden. Reyna didn’t strike me as someone who would appreciate pity.  
  
Instead, I told Reyna about my own life. I talked about my dad and stepmom and my two stepbrothers in San Francisco, and how I had felt like an outsider in my own family. I talked about how I had run away when I was only seven, finding my friends Luke and Thalia and making our way to Camp Half-Blood on Long Island. I described the camp and my years growing up there, about Cathy showing up with her twin brother Will and getting claimed within a week. I talked about meeting Percy and the adventures we’d had together.  
  
Reyna was a good listener.  
  
I was tempted to tell her about more recent problems: my fight with mom, the gift of the silver coin, and the nightmares I’d been having - about an old fear so paralyzing, I'd almost decided not to go on this quest. But I couldn’t bring myself to open up quite that much.  
  
When I was done talking, it was Cathy's turn. She recounted her childhood, growing up with her brother and her mother Naomi, who was one of the sweetest souls. She talked about coming to camp and being shown around by Charlie. She mentioned her role in the war, and how her powers came in. Finally, she retold the story of their recent quest, how they passed the regular entrance to camp, and how they figured out where it was in Bunker 9. For some reason, at the end, she recounted the story of Silena Beauregard.

"Reyna, I'm telling you this not just to ask your judgement, but possibly also to warn you: Leo has been acting on edge. More so than the rest of us. I know him, and this is not how he usually deals with stress - I fear there is something influencing him. I haven't had any premonitions, but my gut tells me something bad is going to happen, and it's going to happen here. Soon."

"That's why you looked so nervous on the ship." She nodded at my words. "I worry about him. If something bad happens, he'll blame himself, and will do anything to make things right... That can be dangerous. We all know that."

"You are comparing him to your dead friend, aren't you? That's why you singled her sacrifice out from the rest just now." Cathy didn't answer, which was an answer on its own.

Reyna gazed over New Rome. Her metal greyhounds sniffed around the garden, snapping at bees in the honeysuckle. Finally Reyna pointed to the cluster of temples on the distant hill.

“The small red building,” she said, “there on the northern side? That’s the temple of my mother, Bellona.” Reyna turned toward Annabeth. “Unlike your mother, Bellona has no Greek equivalent. She is fully, truly Roman. She’s the goddess of protecting the homeland.”  
  
I said nothing. I knew very little about the Roman goddess. I wished I had studied up, but Latin never came as easily to me as Greek. Down below, the hull of the Argo II gleamed as it floated over the forum, like some massive bronze party balloon.  
  
“When the Romans go to war,” Reyna continued, “we first visit the Temple of Bellona. Inside is a symbolic patch of ground that represents enemy soil. We throw a spear into that ground, indicating that we are now at war. You see, Romans have always believed that offense is the best defense. In ancient times, whenever our ancestors felt threatened by their neighbors, they would invade to protect themselves.”  
  
“They conquered everyone around them,” I said. “Carthage, the Gauls-”  
  
“And the Greeks.” Reyna let that comment hang. “My point, Annabeth, is that it isn’t Rome’s nature to cooperate with other powers. Every time Greek and Roman demigods have met, we’ve fought. Conflicts between our two sides have started some of the most horrible wars in human history - especially civil wars.”  
  
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Cathy said. “We’ve got to work together, or Gaea will destroy us both.”  
  
“I agree,” Reyna said. “But is cooperation possible? What if Juno’s plan is flawed? Even goddesses can make mistakes.”  
  
I waited for Reyna to get struck by lightning or turned into a peacock. Nothing happened.  
  
Unfortunately, I shared Reyna’s doubts. Hera did make mistakes. I had had nothing but trouble from that overbearing goddess, and I’d never forgive Hera for taking Percy away, even if it was for a noble cause.  
  
“I don’t trust the goddess,” I admitted. “But I do trust my friends. This isn’t a trick, Reyna. We can work together.”  
  
Reyna finished her cup of chocolate. She set the cup on the terrace railing and gazed over the valley as if imagining battle lines.  
  
“I believe you mean it,” she said. “But if you go to the ancient lands, especially Rome itself, there is something you should know about your mother.”  
  
My shoulders tensed. “My- my mother?”  
  
“When I lived on Circe’s island,” Reyna said, “we had many visitors. Once, perhaps a year before you and Percy arrived, a young man washed ashore. He was half mad from thirst and heat. He’d been drifting at sea for days. His words didn’t make much sense, but he said he was a son of Athena.”  
  
Reyna paused as if waiting for a reaction. I had no idea who the boy might have been. I wasn’t aware of any other Athena kids who’d gone on a quest in the Sea of Monsters, but still I felt a sense of dread. The light filtering through the grapevines made shadows writhe across the ground like a swarm of bugs.  
  
“What happened to this demigod?” I asked.  
  
Reyna waved her hand as if the question was trivial. “Circe turned him into a guinea pig, of course. He made quite a crazy little rodent. But before that, he kept raving about his failed quest. He claimed that he’d gone to Rome, following the Mark of Athena.”

I grabbed the railing to keep her balance.  
  
“Yes,” Reyna said, seeing my discomfort. “He kept muttering about wisdom’s child, the Mark of Athena, and the giants’ bane standing pale and gold. The same lines Ella was just reciting. But you say that you’ve never heard them before today?”  
  
“Not- not the way Ella said them.” My voice was weak. I wasn’t lying. I’d never heard that prophecy, but my mother had charged me with following the Mark of Athena; and as I thought about the coin in my pocket, a horrible suspicion began taking root in her mind. I remembered my mother’s scathing words. I thought about the strange nightmares I’d been having lately. “Did this demigod- did he explain his quest?”  
  
Reyna shook her head. “At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. Much later, when I became praetor of Camp Jupiter, I began to suspect.”  
  
“Suspect... what?”  
  
“There is an old legend that the praetors of Camp Jupiter have passed down through the centuries. If it’s true, it may explain why our two groups of demigods have never been able to work together. It may be the cause of our animosity. Until this old score is finally settled, so the legend goes, Romans and Greeks will never be at peace. And the legend centers on Athena-”  
  
A shrill sound pierced the air. Light flashed in the corner of my eye.  
  
I turned in time to see an explosion blast a new crater in the forum. A burning couch tumbled through the air. Demigods scattered in panic.  
  
“Giants?” I reached for my dagger, which of course wasn’t there. “I thought their army was defeated!”  
  
“It isn’t the giants.” Reyna’s eyes seethed with rage. “You’ve betrayed our trust.”  
  
“What? No!”  
  
As soon as I said it, the Argo II launched a second volley. Its port ballista fired a massive spear wreathed in Greek fire, which sailed straight through the broken dome of the Senate House and exploded inside, lighting up the building like a jack-o’-lantern. If anyone had been in there...  
  
“Gods, no.” A wave of nausea almost made my knees buckle as Cathy turned to the praetor. “Reyna, it isn’t possible. We’d never do this!”  
  
The metal dogs ran to their mistress’s side. They snarled at me and Cathy but paced uncertainly, as if reluctant to attack.  
  
“You’re telling the truth,” Reyna judged. “Perhaps you were not aware of this treachery, and perhaps it was indeed from an... influence like you suspected, but someone must pay.”  
  
Down in the forum, chaos was spreading. Crowds were pushing and shoving. Fistfights were breaking out.  
  
“Bloodshed,” Reyna said.  
  
“We have to stop it!”  
  
I had a horrible feeling this might be the last time the three of us ever acted in agreement, but together we ran down the hill.  
  
If weapons had been allowed in the city, our friends would have already been dead. The Roman demigods in the forum had coalesced into an angry mob. Some threw plates, food, and rocks at the Argo II, which was pointless, as most of the stuff fell back into the crowd.  
  
Several dozen Romans had surrounded Piper and Jason, who were trying to calm them without much luck. Piper’s charmspeak was useless against so many screaming, angry demigods. Jason’s forehead was bleeding. His purple cloak had been ripped to shreds. He kept pleading, “I’m on your side!” but his orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt didn’t help matters - nor did the warship overhead, firing flaming spears into New Rome. One landed nearby and blasted a toga shop to rubble.  
  
“Pluto’s pauldrons,” Reyna cursed. “Look.”  
  
Armed legionnaires were hurrying toward the forum. Two artillery crews had set up catapults just outside the Pomerian Line and were preparing to fire at the Argo II.  
  
“That’ll just make things worse,” I said.  
  
“I hate my job,” Reyna growled. She rushed off toward the legionnaires, her dogs at her side.  
  
 _Percy,_  I thought, scanning the forum desperately. _Where are you?_  
  
Two Romans tried to grab me. I ducked past them and grabbed Cathy's arm, plunging into the crowd. As if the angry Romans, burning couches, and exploding buildings weren’t confusing enough, hundreds of purple ghosts drifted through the forum, passing straight through the demigods’ bodies and wailing incoherently. The fauns had also taken advantage of the chaos. They swarmed the dining tables, grabbing food, plates, and cups. One trotted by me with his arms full of tacos and an entire pineapple between his teeth.  
  
A statue of Terminus exploded into being, right in front of me. He yelled at me in Latin, no doubt calling me a liar and a rule breaker; but I pushed the statue over and kept running.  
  
Finally I spotted Percy. He and his friends, Hazel and Frank, were standing in the middle of a fountain as Percy repelled the angry Romans with blasts of water. Percy’s toga was in tatters, but he looked unhurt.  
  
I called to him as another explosion rocked the forum. This time the flash of light was directly overhead. One of the Roman catapults had fired, and the Argo II groaned and tilted sideways, flames bubbling over its bronze-plated hull.  
  
I noticed a figure clinging desperately to the rope ladder, trying to climb down. It was Octavian, his robes steaming and his face black with soot.  
  
Over by the fountain, Percy blasted the Roman mob with more water. I ran toward him, ducking a Roman fist and a flying plate of sandwiches.  
  
“Annabeth! Cath!” Percy called. “What-?”  
  
“I don’t know!” Cathy yelled.  
  
“I’ll tell you what!” cried a voice from above. Octavian had reached the bottom of the ladder. “The Greeks have fired on us! Your boy Leo has trained his weapons on Rome!”  
  
My chest filled with liquid hydrogen. I felt like I might shatter into a million frozen pieces.  
  
“You’re lying,” I said. “Leo would never—”  
  
“I was just there!” Octavian shrieked. “I saw it with my own eyes!”  
  
The Argo II returned fire. Legionnaires in the field scattered as one of their catapults was blasted to splinters.  
  
“You see?” Octavian screamed. “Romans, kill the invaders!”  
  
I growled in frustration. There was no time for anyone to figure out the truth. The crew from Camp Half-Blood was outnumbered a hundred to one, and even if Octavian had managed to stage some sort of trick (which I thought likely), we’d never be able to convince the Romans before we were overrun and killed.  
  
“We have to leave,” I told Percy. “Now.”  
  
He nodded grimly. “Hazel, Frank, you’ve got to make a choice. Are you coming?”  
  
Hazel looked terrified, but she donned her cavalry helmet. “Of course we are. But you’ll never make it to the ship unless we buy you some time.”  
  
“How?” I asked.  
  
Hazel whistled. Instantly a blur of beige shot across the forum. A majestic horse materialized next to the fountain. He reared, whinnying and scattering the mob. Hazel climbed on his back like she’d been born to ride. Strapped to the horse’s saddle was a Roman cavalry sword.  
  
Hazel unsheathed her golden blade. “Send me an Iris-message when you’re safely away, and we’ll rendezvous,” she said. “Arion, ride!”  
  
The horse zipped through the crowd with incredible speed, pushing back Romans and causing mass panic.  
  
I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe we could make it out of here alive. Then, from halfway across the forum, she heard Jason shouting.  
  
“Romans!” he cried. “Please!”  
  
He and Piper were being pelted with plates and stones. Jason tried to shield Piper, but a brick caught him above the eye. He crumpled, and the crowd surged forward.  
  
“Get back!” Piper screamed. Her charmspeak rolled over the mob, making them hesitate, but I knew the effect wouldn’t last. Percy and I couldn’t possibly reach them in time to help.  
  
“Frank,” Percy said, “it’s up to you. Can you help them?”  
  
I didn’t understand how Frank could do that all by himself, but he swallowed nervously.  
  
“Oh, gods,” he murmured. “Okay, sure. Just get up the ropes. Now.”

"You'll need my help." Cathy sounded sure of herself.  
  
Percy and I lunged for the ladder. Octavian was still clinging to the bottom, but Percy yanked him off and threw him into the mob.  
  
We began to climb as armed legionnaires flooded into the forum. Arrows whistled past my head. An explosion almost knocked me off the ladder. Halfway up, I heard a roar below and glanced down.  
  
Romans screamed and scattered as a full-sized dragon charged through the forum - a beast even scarier than the bronze dragon figurehead on the Argo II. It had rough gray skin like a Komodo lizard’s and leathery bat wings. Cathy sat on its back and whistled sharply, causing momentary distraction for the Romans surrounding Piper and Jason. Arrows and rocks bounced harmlessly off its hide as grabbed them with its front claws and vaulted into the air.  
  
“Is that...?” I couldn’t even put the thought into words.  
  
“Frank,” Percy confirmed, a few feet above me. “He has a few special talents.”  
  
“Understatement,” I muttered. “Keep climbing!”  
  
Without the dragon and Hazel’s horse to distract the archers, we never would have made it up the ladder; but finally we climbed past a row of broken aerial oars and onto the deck. The rigging was on fire. The foresail was ripped down the middle, and the ship listed badly to starboard.  
  
There was no sign of Coach Hedge, but Leo stood amidships, calmly reloading the ballista. My gut twisted with horror.  
  
“Leo!” I screamed. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Destroy them...” He faced me. His eyes were glazed. His movements were like a robot’s. “Destroy them all.”  
  
He turned back to the ballista, but Percy tackled him. Leo’s head hit the deck hard, and his eyes rolled up so that only the whites showed.  
  
The gray dragon soared into view. It circled the ship once and landed at the bow, depositing Jason and Piper, who both collapsed. Cathy climbed off of its back to check up on them.  
  
“Go!” Percy yelled. “Get us out of here!”  
  
With a shock, I realized he was talking to me.  
  
I ran for the helm. I made the mistake of glancing over the rail and saw armed legionnaires closing ranks in the forum, preparing flaming arrows. Hazel spurred Arion, and they raced out of the city with a mob chasing after them. More catapults were being wheeled into range. All along the Pomerian Line, the statues of Terminus were glowing purple, as if building up energy for some kind of attack.  
  
I looked over the controls. I cursed Leo for making them so complicated. No time for fancy maneuvers, but I did know one basic command: _Up_.  
  
I grabbed the aviation throttle and yanked it straight back. The ship groaned. The bow tilted up at a horrifying angle. The mooring lines snapped, and the Argo II shot into the clouds.


	20. Chapter 20

**LEO**

I wished I could invent a time machine. I’d go back two hours and undo what had happened. Either that, or I could invent a Slap-Leo-in-the-Face machine to punish myself, though I doubted it would hurt as badly as the look Annabeth was giving me.

“One more time,” she said. “Exactly what happened?”

I slumped against the mast. My head still throbbed from hitting the deck. All around me, my beautiful new ship was in shambles. The aft crossbows were piles of kindling. The foresail was tattered. The satellite array that powered the onboard Internet and TV was blown to bits, which had really made Coach Hedge mad. Our bronze dragon figurehead, Festus, was coughing up smoke like he had a hairball, and I could tell from the groaning sounds on the port side that some of the aerial oars had been knocked out of alignment or broken off completely, which explained why the ship was listing and shuddering as it flew, the engine wheezing like an asthmatic steam train.  
  
I choked back a sob. “I don’t know. It’s fuzzy.”  
  
Too many people were looking at me: Annabeth (I hated to make her angry; that girl scared me), Coach Hedge with his furry goat legs, his orange polo shirt, and his baseball bat (did he have to carry that everywhere?), and the newcomer, Frank.  
  
I wasn’t sure what to make of Frank. He looked like a baby sumo wrestler, though I wasn’t stupid enough to say that aloud. My memory was hazy, but while I’d been half conscious, I was pretty sure I ’d seen a dragon land on the ship - a dragon that had turned into Frank.  
  
Annabeth crossed her arms. “You mean you don’t remember?”  
  
“I...” I felt like I was trying to swallow a marble. “I remember, but it’s like I was watching myself do things. I couldn’t control it.”  
  
Coach Hedge tapped his bat against the deck. In his gym clothes, with his cap pulled over his horns, he looked just like he used to at the Wilderness School, where he’d spent a year undercover as Jason, Piper, and my P.E. teacher. The way the old satyr was glowering, I almost wondered if the coach was going to order me to do push-ups.  
  
“Look, kid,” Hedge said, “you blew up some stuff. You attacked some Romans. Awesome! Excellent! But did you have to knock out the satellite channels? I was right in the middle of watching a cage match.”  
  
“Coach,” Annabeth said, “why don’t you make sure all the fires are out?”  
  
“But I already did that.”  
  
“Do it again.”  
  
The satyr trudged off, muttering under his breath. Even Hedge wasn’t crazy enough to defy Annabeth.  
  
She knelt next to me. Her gray eyes were as steely as ball bearings. Her blond hair fell loose around her shoulders, but I didn’t find that attractive. I had no idea where the stereotype of dumb giggly blondes came from. Ever since I’d met Annabeth at the Grand Canyon last winter, when she’d marched toward me with that _Give me Percy Jackson or I’ll kill you_ expression, I thought of blondes as much too smart and much too dangerous - especially as my girlfriend was one herself, black and red streaks or not.  
  
“Leo,” she said calmly, “did Octavian trick you somehow? Did he frame you, or-”  
  
“No.” I could have lied and blamed that stupid Roman, but I didn’t want to make a bad situation worse. “The guy was a jerk, but he didn’t fire on the camp. I did.”  
  
The new kid, Frank, scowled. “On purpose?”  
  
“No!” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Well, yes... I mean, I didn’t want to. But at the same time, I felt like I wanted to. Something was making me do it. There was this cold feeling inside me-”  
  
“A cold feeling.” Annabeth’s tone changed. She sounded almost... scared.  
  
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”  
  
From belowdecks, Percy called up, “Annabeth, we need you.”  
  
 _Oh, gods_ , Leo thought. _Please let Jason be okay._  
  
As soon as they’d gotten on board, Piper and Millie had taken Jason below. The cut on his head had looked pretty bad. I had known Jason longer than anyone at Camp Half-Blood, save for Piper. We were best friends. If Jason didn’t make it...  
  
“He’ll be fine.” Annabeth’s expression softened. “Frank, I’ll be back. Just... watch Leo. Please.”  
  
Frank nodded.  
  
If it was possible for me to feel worse, I did. Annabeth now trusted a Roman demigod she’d known for like, three seconds, more than she trusted me.  
  
Once she was gone, Frank and I stared at each other. The big dude looked pretty odd in his bedsheet toga, with his gray pullover hoodie and jeans, and a bow and quiver from the ship’s armory slung over his shoulder. I remembered the time we had met the Hunters of Artemis - a bunch of cute litte girls in silvery clothes, all armed with bows. I imagined Frank frolicking along with them. The idea was so ridiculous, it almost made me feel better. Almost.  
  
“So,” Frank said. “Your name isn’t Sammy?”  
  
I scowled. “What kind of question is that?”  
  
“Nothing,” Frank said quickly. “I just- Nothing. About the firing on the camp... Octavian could be behind it, like magically or something. He didn’t want the Romans getting along with you guys.”  
  
I wanted to believe that. I was grateful to this kid for not hating me. But I knew it hadn’t been Octavian. I had walked to a ballista and started firing. Part of me had known it was wrong. I’d asked myself: _What the heck am I doing?_ But I’d done it anyway.  
  
Maybe I was going crazy. The stress of all those months working on the Argo II might’ve finally made me crack.  
  
But I couldn’t think about that. I needed to do something productive. My hands needed to be busy.  
  
“Look,” I said, “I should talk to Festus and get a damage report. You mind...?”  
  
Frank helped me up. “Who is Festus?”  
  
“My friend,” I said. “His name isn’t Sammy either, in case you’re wondering. Come on. I’ll introduce you.”  
  
Fortunately the bronze dragon wasn’t damaged. Well, aside from the fact that last winter he’d lost everything except his head - but I didn’t count that.  
  
When we reached the bow of the ship, the figurehead turned a hundred and eighty degrees to look at them. Frank yelped and backed away.  
  
“It’s alive!” he said.  
  
I would have laughed if I hadn’t felt so bad. “Yeah. Frank, this is Festus. He used to be a full bronze dragon, but we had an accident.”  
  
“You have a lot of accidents,” Frank noted.  
  
“Well, some of us can’t turn into dragons, so we have to build our own.” I arched my eyebrows at Frank. “Anyway, I revived him as a figurehead. He’s kind of the ship’s main interface now. How are things looking, Festus?”  
  
Festus snorted smoke and made a series of squeaking, whirring sounds. Over the last few months, I had learned to interpret this machine language. Other demigods could understand Latin and Greek. I could speak Creak and Squeak.  
  
“Ugh,” I said. “Could be worse, but the hull is compromised in several places. The port aerial oars have to be fixed before we can go full speed again. We’ll need some repair materials: Celestial bronze, tar, lime-”  
  
“What do you need limes for?”  
  
“Dude, lime. Calcium carbonate, used in cement and a bunch of other- Ah, never mind. The point is, this ship isn’t going far unless we can fix it.”  
  
Festus made another click-creak noise that I didn’t recognize. It sounded like AY-zuhl.  
  
“Oh... Hazel,” I deciphered. “That’s the girl with the curly hair, right?”  
  
Frank gulped. “Is she okay?”  
  
“Yeah, she’s fine,” I said. “According to Festus, her horse is racing along below. She’s following us.”  
  
“We’ve got to land, then,” Frank said.  
  
I studied him. “She’s your girlfriend?”  
  
Frank chewed his lip. “Yes.”  
  
“You don’t sound sure.”  
  
“Yes. Yes, definitely. I’m sure.”  
  
I raised my hands. “Okay, fine. The problem is we can only manage one landing. The way the hull and the oars are, we won’t be able to lift off again until we repair, so we’ll have to make sure we land somewhere with all the right supplies.”  
  
Frank scratched his head. “Where do you get Celestial bronze? You can’t just stock up at Home Depot.”  
  
“Festus, do a scan.”  
  
“He can scan for magic bronze?” Frank marveled. “Is there anything he can’t do?”  
  
I thought: _You should’ve seen him when he had a body._ But I didn’t say that. It was too painful, remembering the way Festus used to be.  
  
I peered over the ship’s bow. The Central California valley was passing below. I didn’t hold out much hope that we could find what they needed all in one place, but we had to try. I also wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and New Rome. The Argo II could cover vast distances pretty quickly, thanks to its magical engine, but I figured the Romans had magic travel methods of their own.  
  
Behind me, the stairs creaked. Percy, Annabeth and Millie climbed up, their faces grim.  
  
My heart stumbled. “Is Jason-?”

“He’s resting,” Millie said. “Piper’s keeping an eye on him, but he should be fine. Three hymns to my father was enough singing to make his pulse even out.”  
  
Percy gave me a hard look. “Annabeth says you did fire the ballista?”  
  
“Man, I- I don’t understand how it happened. I’m so sorry-”  
  
“Sorry?” Percy growled.  
  
Annabeth put a hand on her boyfriend’s chest. “We’ll figure it out later. Right now, we have to regroup and make a plan. What’s the situation with the ship?”  
  
My legs trembled. The way Percy had looked at me made me feel the same as when Jason summoned lightning. My skin tingled, and every instinct in my body screamed, _Duck_!  
  
I told Annabeth about the damage and the supplies we needed. At least I felt better talking about something fixable.  
  
I was bemoaning the shortage of Celestial bronze when Festus began to whir and squeak.  
  
“Perfect.” I sighed with relief.  
  
“What’s perfect?” Annabeth said. “I could use some perfect about now.”  
  
I managed a smile. “Everything we need in one place. Frank, why don’t you turn into a bird or something? Fly down and tell your girlfriend to meet us at the Great Salt Lake in Utah.”  
  
Once we got there, it wasn’t a pretty landing. With the oars damaged and the foresail torn, I could barely manage a controlled descent. The others strapped themselves in below - except for Coach Hedge, who insisted on clinging to the forward rail, yelling, “YEAH! Bring it on, lake!” I stood astern, alone at the helm, and aimed as best I could.  
  
Festus creaked and whirred warning signals, which were relayed through the intercom to the quarterdeck.  
  
“I know, I know,” I said, gritting my teeth.  
  
I didn’t have much time to take in the scenery. To the southeast, a city was nestled in the foothills of a mountain range, blue and purple in the afternoon shadows. A flat desert landscape spread to the south. Directly beneath us the Great Salt Lake glittered like aluminum foil, the shoreline etched with white salt marshes that reminded me of aerial photos of Mars.  
  
“Hang on, Coach!” I shouted. “This is going to hurt.”

 

“I was born for hurt!”  
  
 _WHOOM_! A swell of salt water washed over the bow, dousing Coach Hedge. The Argo II listed dangerously to starboard, then righted itself and rocked on the surface of the lake. Machinery hummed as the aerial blades that were still working changed to nautical form.  
  
Three banks of robotic oars dipped into the water and began moving them forward.  
  
“Good job, Festus,” I said. “Take us toward the south shore.”  
  
“Yeah!” Coach Hedge pumped his fists in the air. He was drenched from his horns to hooves, but grinning like a crazy goat. “Do it again!”  
  
“Uh... maybe later,” I said. “Just stay above deck, okay? You can keep watch, in case - you know, the lake decides to attack us or something.”  
  
“On it,” Hedge promised.  
  
I rang the All clear bell and headed for the stairs. Before I got there, a loud _clump-clump-clump_ shook the hull. A tan stallion appeared on deck with Hazel Levesque on his back.  
  
“How-?” My question died in his throat. “We’re in the middle of a lake! Can that thing fly?”  
  
The horse whinnied angrily.  
  
“Arion can’t fly,” Hazel said. “But he can run across just about anything. Water, vertical surfaces, small mountains - none of that bothers him.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Hazel was looking at me strangely, the way she had during the feast in the forum - like she was searching for something in my face. I was tempted to ask if we had met before, but I was sure we hadn’t. I would remember a pretty girl paying such close attention to me. Before Millie, that never really happened.  
  
The way Hazel was studying me made me feel uneasy and self-conscious.  
  
Coach Hedge crept forward with his baseball bat, eyeing the magic horse suspiciously. “Valdez, does this count as an invasion?”  
  
“No!” Leo said. “Um, Hazel, you’d better come with me. I built a stable belowdecks, if Arion wants to-”  
  
“He’s more of a free spirit.” Hazel slipped out of the saddle. “He’ll graze around the lake until I call him. But I want to see the ship. Lead the way.”  
  
The Argo II was designed like an ancient trireme, only twice as big. The first deck had one central corridor with crew cabins on either side. On a normal trireme, most of the space would’ve been taken up with three rows of benches for a few hundred sweaty guys to do the manual labor, but Leo’s oars were automated and retractable, so they took up very little room inside the hull. The ship’s power came from the engine room on the second and lowest deck, which also housed sickbay, storage, and the stables.  
  
I led the way down the hall. I’d built the ship with ten cabins - eight for the demigods of the prophecy, a room for Coach Hedge (Seriously - Chiron considered him a responsible adult chaperone?) and one spare room. At the stern was a large mess hall/lounge, which was where I was headed.  
  
On the way, we passed Jason’s room. The door was open. Piper sat at the side of his berth, holding Jason’s hand while he snored with an ice pack on his head. Millie trickled some nectar into his mouth, humming softly.  
  
Piper glanced at me. She held a finger to her lips for quiet, but she didn’t look angry. That was something. I tried to force down the guilt, and we kept walking. When we reached the mess hall, we found the others - Percy, Annabeth, and Frank - sitting dejectedly around the dining table.  
  
I had made the lounge as nice as possible, since I figured we'd be spending a lot of time there. The cupboard was lined with magic cups and plates from Camp Half-Blood, which would fill up with whatever food or drink you wanted on command. There was also a magical ice chest with canned drinks, perfect for picnics ashore. The chairs were cushy recliners with thousand-finger massage, built-in headphones, and sword and drink holders for all your demigod kicking-back needs. There were no windows, but the walls were enchanted to show real-time footage from Camp Half-Blood - the beach, the forest, the strawberry fields - although now I was wondering if this made people homesick rather than happy.  
  
Percy was staring longingly at a sunset view of Half-Blood Hill, where the Golden Fleece glittered in the branches of the tall pine tree.

After a few moments of silence, Millie came in and sat down next to me.  
  
“So we’ve landed,” Percy said. “What now?”  
  
Frank plucked on his bowstring. “Figure out the prophecy? I mean... that was a prophecy Ella spoke, right? From the Sibylline Books?”  
  
“The what?” I asked.  
  
Frank explained how their harpy friend was freakishly good at memorizing books. At some point in the past, she’d inhaled a collection of ancient prophecies that had supposedly been destroyed around the fall of Rome.  
  
“That’s why you didn’t tell the Romans,” I guessed. “You didn’t want them to get hold of her.”  
  
Percy kept staring at the image of Half-Blood Hill. “Ella’s sensitive. She was a captive when we found her. I just didn’t want...” He made a fist. “It doesn’t matter now. I sent Tyson an Iris-message, told him to take Ella to Camp Half-Blood. They’ll be safe there.”  
  
I doubted that any of them would be safe, now that I had stirred up a camp of angry Romans on top of the problems we already had with Gaea and the giants; but I kept quiet.  
  
Annabeth laced her fingers. “Let me think about the prophecy - but right now we have more immediate problems. We have to get this ship fixed. Leo, what do we need?”  
  
“The easiest thing is tar.” I was glad to change the subject. “We can get that in the city, at a roofing-supply store or someplace like that. Also, Celestial bronze and lime. According to Festus, we can find both of those on an island in the lake, just west of here.”  
  
“We’ll have to hurry,” Hazel warned. “If I know Octavian, he’s searching for us with his auguries. The Romans will send a strike force after us. It’s a matter of honor.”  
  
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. “Guys... I don’t know what happened. Honestly, I-”  
  
Annabeth raised her hand. “We’ve been talking. We agree it couldn’t have been you, Leo. That cold feeling you mentioned... I felt it too. It must have been some sort of magic, either Octavian or Gaea or one of her minions. But until we understand what happened-”  
  
Frank grunted. “How can we be sure it won’t happen again?”  
  
My fingers heated up like they were about to catch fire. One of my powers as a son of Hephaestus was that I could summon flames at will; but I had to be careful not to do so by accident, especially on a ship filled with explosives and flammable supplies.  
  
“I’m fine now,” I insisted, though I wished I could be sure. “Maybe we should use the buddy system. Nobody goes anywhere alone. We can leave Piper and Coach Hedge on board with Jason. Send one team into town to get tar. Another team can go after the bronze and the lime.”  
  
“Split up?” Percy said. “That sounds like a really bad idea.”  
  
“It’ll be quicker,” Hazel put in. “Besides, there’s a reason a quest is usually limited to three demigods, right?”  
  
Annabeth raised her eyebrows, as if reappraising Hazel’s merits. “You’re right. The same reason we needed the Argo II... outside camp, eight demigods in one place will attract way too much monstrous attention. The ship is designed to conceal and protect us. We should be safe enough on board; but if we go on expeditions, we shouldn’t travel in groups larger than three. No sense alerting more of Gaea’s minions than we have to.”  
  
Percy still didn’t look happy about it, but he took Annabeth’s hand. “As long as you’re my buddy, I’m good.”  
  
Hazel smiled. “Oh, that’s easy. Frank, you were amazing, turning into a dragon! Could you do it again to fly Annabeth and Percy into town for the tar?”  
  
Frank opened his mouth like he wanted to protest. “I... I suppose. But what about you?”  
  
“I’ll ride Arion with Sa- with Leo, here, and with Emily-Catherine.” "Just Cath or Cathy is fine." Hazel fidgeted with her sword hilt, which made me uneasy. She had even more nervous energy than I did. “We’ll get the bronze and the lime. We can all meet back here by dark.”  
  
Frank scowled. Obviously, he didn’t like the idea of me going off with Hazel. For some reason, Frank’s disapproval made me want to go. I had to prove I was trustworthy. I wasn’t going to fire any random ballistae again.  
  
“Leo,” said Annabeth, “if we get the supplies, how long to fix the ship?”  
  
“With luck, just a few hours.”  
  
“Fine,” she decided. “We’ll meet you back here as soon as possible, but stay safe. We could use some good luck. That doesn’t mean we’ll get it.”  
  
Riding Arion was the best thing that had happened to me all day - which wasn’t saying much, since my day had sucked. The horse’s hooves turned the surface of the lake to salty mist. I put my hand against the horse’s side and felt the muscles working like a well-oiled machine. For the first time, I understood why car engines were measured in horsepower. Arion was a four-legged Maserati.  
  
Ahead of us lay an island - a line of sand so white, it might have been pure table salt. Behind that rose an expanse of grassy dunes and weathered boulders.  
  
Leo sat behind Millie, who sat behind Hazel. I had one arm around her waist, and I felt a little more at ease than before.

Before we left, Percy had pulled us aside to tell us Hazel’s story. Percy made it sound like he was just doing us a favor, but there’d been an undertone like _If you mess with my friend, I will personally feed you to a great white shark._  
  
According to Percy, Hazel was a daughter of Pluto. She’d died in the 1940s and been brought back to life only a few months ago.  
  
I found that hard to believe. Hazel seemed warm and very alive, not like the ghosts or the other reborn mortals Leo had tangled with.  
  
She seemed good with people, too, unlike me, who was much more comfortable with machines. Living stuff, like horses and girls? I had no idea what made them work.  
  
Arion thundered onto the beach. He stomped his hooves and whinnied triumphantly, like Coach Hedge yelling a battle cry.

The three of us dismounted. Arion pawed the sand.

“He needs to eat,” Hazel explained. “He likes gold, but-”  
  
“Gold?” Millie asked.  
  
“He’ll settle for grass. Go on, Arion. Thanks for the ride. I’ll call you.”  
  
Just like that, the horse was gone - nothing left but a steaming trail across the lake.  
  
“Fast horse,” I said, “and expensive to feed.”  
  
“Not really,” Hazel said. “Gold is easy for me.”  
  
I raised my eyebrows. “How is gold easy? Please tell me you’re not related to King Midas. I don’t like that guy.”

Hazel pursed her lips, as if she regretted raising the subject. “Never mind.”  
  
That made me even more curious, but I decided it might be better not to press her. I knelt and cupped a handful of white sand. “Well.. one problem solved, anyway. This is lime.”  
  
Hazel frowned. “The whole beach?”  
  
“Yeah. See? The granules are perfectly round. It’s not really sand. It’s calcium carbonate.” I pulled a Ziploc bag from the tool belt and dug my hand into the lime.  
  
Suddenly I froze. I remembered all the times the earth goddess Gaea had appeared to me in the ground - her sleeping face made of dust or sand or dirt. She loved to taunt me. I imagined her closed eyes and her dreaming smile swirling in the white calcium.  
  
 _Walk away_ , little hero, Gaea said. _Without you, the ship cannot be fixed._  
  
“Leo?” Millie asked. “You okay?”   
  
I took a shaky breath. Gaea wasn’t here. I was just freaking myself out. She squeezed my shoulder and knelt next to me.  
  
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, fine.”  
  
I started to fill the bag.  
  
Hazel knelt next to us and helped. “We should’ve brought a pail and shovels.”  
  
The idea cheered me up. I even smiled. “We could’ve made a sand castle.”  
  
“A lime castle.”  
  
Our eyes locked for a second too long.  
  
Hazel looked away. “You are so much like-”  
  
“Sammy?” I guessed.  
  
She fell backward. “You know?”  
  
“I have no idea who Sammy is. But Frank asked me if I was sure that wasn’t my name.”  
  
“And... it isn’t?”  
  
“No! Jeez.”  
  
“You don’t have a twin brother or...” Hazel stopped. “Is your family from New Orleans?”  
  
“Nah. Houston. Why? Is Sammy a guy you used to know?”  
  
“I... It’s nothing. You just look like him.”  
  
I could tell she was too embarrassed to say more. But if Hazel was a kid from the past, did that mean Sammy was from the 1940s? If so, how could Frank know the guy? And why would Hazel think I was Sammy, all these decades later?  
  
We finished filling the bag in silence. I stuffed it in the tool belt and the bag vanished - no weight, no mass, no volume - though I knew it would be there as soon as I reached for it. Anything that could fit into the pockets, I could tote around. I loved my tool belt. I just wished the pockets were large enough for a chain saw, or maybe a bazooka.  
  
I stood and scanned the island - bleach-white dunes, blankets of grass, and boulders encrusted with salt like frosting. “Festus said there was Celestial bronze close by, but I’m not sure where-”  
  
“That way.” Hazel pointed up the beach. “About five hundred yards.”  
  
“How do you-?”  
  
“Precious metals,” Hazel said. “It’s a Pluto thing.”  
  
I remembered what she’d said about gold being easy. “Handy talent. Lead the way, Miss Metal Detector.”  
  
The sun began to set. The sky turned a bizarre mix of purple and yellow. In another reality, I might’ve enjoyed a walk on the beach with a Millie, even if there was another person there, but the farther they went, the edgier I felt. Finally Hazel turned inland.  
  
“You sure this is a good idea?” I asked.  
  
“We’re close,” she promised. “Come on.”  
  
Just over the dunes, we saw the woman.  
  
She sat on a boulder in the middle of a grassy field. A black-and-chrome motorcycle was parked nearby, but each of the wheels had a big pie slice removed from the spokes and rim, so that they resembled Pac-Men. No way was the bike drivable in that condition.  
  
The woman had curly black hair and a bony frame. She wore black leather biker’s pants, tall leather boots, and a bloodred leather jacket—sort of a Michael Jackson joins the Hell’s Angels look. Around her feet, the ground was littered with what looked like broken shells. She was hunched over, pulling new ones out of a sack and cracking them open. Shucking oysters? I wasn’t sure if there were oysters in the Great Salt Lake. I didn’t think so.  
  
I wasn’t anxious to approach. I’d had bad experiences with strange ladies. My old babysitter, Tía Callida, had turned out to be Hera and had a nasty habit of putting me down for naps in a blazing fireplace. The earth goddess Gaea had killed my mother in a workshop fire when I was eight. The snow goddess Khione had tried to turn me into a frozen dairy treat in Sonoma.  
  
But Hazel forged ahead, so I didn’t have much choice except to follow.  
  
As we got closer, I noticed disturbing details. Attached to the woman’s belt was a curled whip. Her red-leather jacket had a subtle design to it - twisted branches of an apple tree populated with skeletal birds. The oysters she was shucking were actually fortune cookies.  
  
A pile of broken cookies lay ankle-deep all around her. She kept pulling new ones from her sack, cracking them open, and reading the fortunes. Most she tossed aside. A few made her mutter unhappily. She would swipe her finger over the slip of paper like she was smudging it, then magically reseal the cookie and toss it into a nearby basket.  
  
“What are you doing?” I asked before I could stop himself.  
  
The woman looked up. My lungs filled so fast, I thought they might burst.  
  
“Aunt Rosa?” I asked.  
  
It didn’t make sense, but this woman looked exactly like my aunt. She had the same broad nose with a mole on one side, the same sour mouth and hard eyes. But it couldn’t be Rosa. She would never wear clothes like that, and she was still down in Houston, as far as I knew. She wouldn’t be cracking open fortune cookies in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Millie took my hand and squeezed it reassuringly.  
  
“Is that what you see?” the woman asked. “Interesting. And you, Hazel, dear?”  
  
“How did you-?” Hazel stepped back in alarm. “You- you look like Mrs. Leer. My third grade teacher. I hated you.”  
  
The woman cackled. “Excellent. You resented her, eh? She judged you unfairly?”  
  
“You- she taped my hands to the desk for misbehaving,” Hazel said. “She called my mother a witch. She blamed me for everything I didn’t do and- No. She has to be dead. Who are you?”  
  
“Oh, Leo knows,” the woman said. “How do you feel about Aunt Rosa, mijo?”  
  
Mijo. That’s what my mom had always called me. After my mom died, Rosa had rejected me. She’d called me a devil child. She’d blamed me for the fire that had killed her sister. Rosa had turned my family against me and left me - a scrawny orphaned eight-year-old - at the mercy of social services. I had bounced around from foster home to foster home until I’d finally found a home at Camp Half-Blood. I didn’t hate many people, but after all these years, Aunt Rosa’s face made me boil with resentment.  
  
How did I feel? I wanted to get even. I wanted revenge.  
  
My eyes drifted to the motorcycle with the Pac-Man wheels. Where had I seen something like that before? Cabin 16, back at Camp Half-Blood - the symbol above their door was a broken wheel.  
  
“Nemesis,” I said. “You’re the goddess of revenge.”  
  
“You see?” The goddess smiled at Hazel. “He recognizes me.”  
  
Nemesis cracked another cookie and wrinkled her nose. “You will have great fortune when you least expect it,” she read. “That’s exactly the sort of nonsense I hate. Someone opens a cookie, and suddenly they have a prophecy that they’ll be rich! I blame that tramp Tyche. Always dispensing good luck to people who don’t deserve it!”  
  
I looked at the mound of broken cookies. “Uh... you know those aren’t real prophecies, right? They’re just stuffed in the cookies at some factory-”  
  
“Don’t try to excuse it!” Nemesis snapped. “It’s just like Tyche to get people’s hopes up. No, no. I must counter her.” Nemesis flicked a finger over the slip of paper, and the letters changed to red. “You will die painfully when you most expect it. There! Much better.”  
  
“That’s horrible!” Hazel said. “You’d let someone read that in their fortune cookie, and it would come true?”  
  
Nemesis sneered. It really was creepy, seeing that expression on Aunt Rosa’s face. “My dear Hazel, haven’t you ever wished horrible things on Mrs. Leer for the way she treated you?”  
  
“That doesn’t mean I’d want them to come true!”  
  
“Bah.” The goddess resealed the cookie and tossed it in her basket. “Tyche would be Fortuna for you, I suppose, being Roman. Like the others, she’s in a horrible way right now. Me? I’m not affected. I am called Nemesis in both Greek and Roman. I do not change, because revenge is universal.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Nemesis opened another cookie. “Lucky numbers. Ridiculous! That’s not even a proper fortune!” She crushed the cookie and scattered the pieces around her feet.  
  
“To answer your question, Leo Valdez, the gods are in terrible shape. It always happens when a civil war is brewing between you Romans and Greeks. The Olympians are torn between their two natures, called on by both sides. They become quite schizophrenic, I’m afraid. Splitting headaches. Disorientation.”  
  
“But we’re not at war,” I insisted.  
  
“Um, Leo...” Hazel winced. “Except for the fact that you recently blew up large sections of New Rome.”  
  
I stared at her, wondering whose side she was on. “Not on purpose!”  
  
“I know...” Hazel said, “but the Romans don’t realize that. And they’ll be pursuing us in retaliation.”  
  
Nemesis cackled. “Leo, listen to the girl. War is coming. Gaea has seen to it, with your help. And can you guess whom the gods blame for their predicament?”  
  
My mouth tasted like calcium carbonate. “Me.”  
  
The goddess snorted. “Well, don’t you have a high opinion of yourself. You’re just a pawn on the chessboard, Leo Valdez. I was referring to the player who set this ridiculous quest in motion, bringing the Greeks and Romans together. The gods blame Hera - or Juno, if you prefer! The queen of the heavens has fled Olympus to escape the wrath of her family. Don’t expect any more help from your patron!”  
  
My head throbbed. I had mixed feelings about Hera. She’d meddled in my life since I was a baby, molding me to serve her purpose in this big prophecy, but at least she had been on our side, more or less. If she was out of the picture now...  
  
“So why are you here?” Millie asked.  
  
“Why, to offer my help!” Nemesis smiled wickedly.  
  
I glanced at Hazel. She looked like she’d just been offered a free snake.  
  
“Your help,” I said.  
  
“Of course!” said the goddess. “I enjoy tearing down the proud and powerful, and there are none who deserve tearing down like Gaea and her giants. Still, I must warn you that I will not suffer undeserved success. Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme. True success requires sacrifice.”  
  
“Sacrifice?” Hazel’s voice was tight. “I lost my mother. I died and came back. Now my brother is missing. Isn’t that enough sacrifice for you?”

I could totally relate. I wanted to scream that I’d lost my mom too. My whole life had been one misery after another. I’d lost my dragon, Festus. I’d nearly killed myself trying to finish the Argo II. Now I’d fired on the Roman camp, most likely started a war, and maybe lost the trust of my friends.

I felt Millie's hand shaking in mine. Out of all of us, she was possibly the one who had gotten the biggest share of sacrifices in her life. Nearly all of her best friends died in the war.  
  
“Right now,” I said, trying to control my anger, “all I want is some Celestial bronze.”  
  
“Oh, that’s easy,” Nemesis said. “It’s just over the rise. You’ll find it with the sweethearts.”  
  
“Wait,” Hazel said. “What sweethearts?”  
  
Nemesis popped a cookie in her mouth and swallowed it, fortune and all. “You’ll see. Perhaps they will teach you a lesson, Hazel Levesque. Most heroes cannot escape their nature, even when given a second chance at life.” She smiled. “And speaking of your brother Nico, you don’t have much time. Let’s see... it’s June twenty-fifth? Yes, after today, six more days. Then he dies, along with the entire city of Rome.”  
  
Hazel’s eyes widened. “How... what-?”  
  
“And as for you, child of fire.” She turned to me. “Your worst hardships are yet to come. Soon you will face a problem you cannot solve, though I could help you... for a price.”  
  
I smelled smoke. I realized fingers on my left hand were ablaze, and Hazel was staring at me in terror. I pulled my right hand away from Millie - who looked at me, not with pity, but still - for protection.  
  
I shoved my hand in my pocket to extinguish the flames. “I like to solve my own problems.”  
  
“Very well.” Nemesis brushed cookie dust off her jacket.  
  
“But, um, what sort of price are we talking about?”  
  
The goddess shrugged. “One of my children recently traded an eye for the ability to make a real difference in the world.”  
  
My stomach churned. “You…want an eye?”

"You shouldn't talk about it like it's nothing. Ethan was a good kid, and he didn't just trade his eye, he traded his life." Nemesis eyed Millie, but went on as if nothing had happened.  
  
“In your case, perhaps another sacrifice would do. But something just as painful. Here.” She handed me an unbroken fortune cookie. “If you need an answer, break this. It will solve your problem.”  
  
My hand trembled as I held the fortune cookie. “What problem?”  
  
“You’ll know when the time comes.”  
  
“No, thanks,” I said firmly. But my hand, as though it had a will of its own, slipped the cookie into the tool belt.  
  
Nemesis picked another cookie from her bag and cracked it open. “You will have cause to reconsider your choices soon. Oh, I like that one. No changes needed here.”  
  
She resealed the cookie and tossed it into the basket. “Very few gods will be able to help you on the quest. Most are already incapacitated, and their confusion will only grow worse. One thing might bring unity to Olympus again - an old wrong finally avenged. Ah, that would be sweet indeed, the scales finally balanced! But it will not happen unless you accept my help.”  
  
“I suppose you won’t tell us what you’re talking about,” Hazel muttered. “Or why my brother Nico has only six days to live. Or why Rome is going to be destroyed.”  
  
Nemesis chuckled. She rose and slung her sack of cookies over her shoulder. “Oh, it’s all tied together, Hazel Levesque. As for my offer, Leo Valdez, give it some thought. You’re a good child. A hard worker. We could do business. But I have detained you too long. You should visit the reflecting pool before the light fades. My poor cursed boy gets quite... agitated when the darkness comes.”  
  
I didn’t like the sound of that, but the goddess climbed on her motorcycle. Apparently, it was drivable, despite those Pac-Man–shaped wheels, because Nemesis revved her engine and disappeared in a mushroom cloud of black smoke.  
  
Hazel bent down. All the broken cookies and fortunes had disappeared except for one crumpled slip of paper. She picked it up and read, “You will see yourself reflected, and you will have reason to despair.”  
  
“Fantastic,” I grumbled. “Let’s go see what that means.”


	21. Chapter 21

**EMILY-CATHERINE**

“Who is Aunt Rosa?” Hazel asked.  
  
Leo looked like he didn’t want to talk about is.  
  
“Long story,” he said. “She abandoned me after my mom died, gave me to foster care.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Yeah, well... What about you? What Nemesis said about your brother?”  
  
Hazel blinked like she’d gotten salt in her eyes. “Nico... he found me in the Underworld. He brought me back to the mortal world and convinced the Romans at Camp Jupiter to accept me. I owe him for my second chance at life. If Nemesis is right, and Nico’s in danger... I have to help him.”

"We need to get him out of whatever trouble he managed to find his way into. I can't lose him." I held my black skull necklace. Before the quest, I'd asked Lou Ellen to enchant it - it wouldn't come off unless I wanted it to. I would never forgive myself if I lost it, but I couldn't bear to leave it behind.

“And what Nemesis said about him having six days to live, and Rome getting destroyed... any idea what she meant?”  
  
“None,” Hazel admitted. “But I’m afraid...”  
  
Whatever she was thinking, she decided not to share it. She climbed one of the largest boulders to get a better view. I followed, and Leo tried to climb up as well, but he lost his balance. I caught his hand. I pulled him up and we found ourselves atop the rock, holding hands, face-to-face.  
  
Gods, I could get lost in those eyes if I wasn't careful.  
  
He faced Hazel, but didn't let go of my hand.

“When we were talking to Nemesis,” Hazel said uneasily, “your hands... I saw flames.”  
  
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a Hephaestus power. Usually I can keep it under control.”  
  
“Oh.” She put one hand protectively on her denim shirt, like she was about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I got the feeling she wanted to back away from him, but the boulder was too small. I know Leo saw it too, and I gave his hand two quick squeezes.  
  
He gazed across the island. The opposite shore was only a few hundred yards away. Between here and there were dunes and clumps of boulders, but nothing that looked like a reflecting pool.  
  
“We should keep going,” he said. “I wonder what Nemesis meant about finishing before dark.”  
  
Hazel glanced at the sun, which was just touching the horizon. “And who is the cursed boy she mentioned?”  
  
Below us, a voice said, “Cursed boy she mentioned.”  
  
At first, I saw no one. Then my eyes adjusted. I realized a young woman was standing only ten feet from the base of the boulder. Her dress was a Greek-style tunic the same color as the rocks. Her wispy hair was somewhere between brown and blond and gray, so it blended with the dry grass. She wasn’t invisible, exactly, but she was almost perfectly camouflaged until she moved. Even then, I had trouble focusing on her. Her face was pretty but not memorable. In fact, each time I blinked, I couldn’t remember what she looked like, and I had to concentrate to find her again.  
  
“Hello,” Hazel said. “Who are you?”  
  
“Who are you?” the girl answered. Her voice sounded weary, like she was tired of answering that question.  
  
“Are you the cursed kid Nemesis mentioned?” Leo asked. “But you’re a girl.”  
  
“You’re a girl,” said the girl.  
  
“Excuse me?” Leo said.  
  
“Excuse me,” the girl said miserably.  
  
“You’re repeating” Leo stopped. “Oh. Hold it. Millie, wasn’t there some myth about a girl who repeated everything-?”  
  
“Echo,” I said.  
  
“Echo,” the girl agreed. She shifted, her dress changing with the landscape. Her eyes were the color of the salt water. I tried to home in on her features, but couldn’t.  
  
“I don’t remember the myth,” Leo admitted. “You were cursed to repeat the last thing you heard?”  
  
“You heard,” Echo said.  
  
“Poor thing,” Hazel said. “If I remember right, a goddess did this?”  
  
“A goddess did this,” Echo confirmed.

"Hera, she was caught up listening to Echo and Zeus could run around cheating on her freely. Hera decided to blame Echo instead of Zeus, and take away her ability to choose what to say."  
  
Leo scratched his head. “But wasn’t that thousands of years... oh. You’re one of the mortals who came back through the Doors of Death. I really wish we could stop running into dead people.”  
  
“Dead people,” Echo said, like she was chastising him.  
  
Hazel was staring at her feet. I elbow-jabbed Leo in the side - not too hard to make him fall off, though.  
  
“Uh... sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“That way.” Echo pointed toward the far shore of the island.  
  
“You want to show us something?” Hazel asked. She climbed down the boulder, and Leo followed. He held out his hands and helped me hop down, even though we both knew I didn't need it. I thought it was sweet.  
  
Even up close, Echo was hard to see. In fact, she seemed to get more invisible the longer we looked at her.  
  
“You sure you’re real?” Leo asked. “I mean…flesh and blood?”  
  
“Flesh and blood.” She touched Leo’s face and made him flinch.  
  
“So... you have to repeat everything?” he asked.  
  
“Everything.”  
  
Leo couldn’t help smiling. “That could be fun.”  
  
“Fun,” she said unhappily.  
  
“Blue elephants.”  
  
“Blue elephants.”  
  
“Kiss me, you fool.”  
  
“You fool.”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Leo,” I chastised him, “don’t tease her.”  
  
“Don’t tease her,” Echo agreed.  
  
“Okay, okay. So what were you pointing at? Do you need our help?”  
  
“Help,” Echo agreed emphatically. She gestured for us to follow and sprinted down the slope. I could only follow her progress by the movement of the grass and the shimmer of her dress as it changed to match the rocks.  
  
“We’d better hurry,” Hazel said. “Or we’ll lose her.”  
  
We found the problem - if you can call a mob of good-looking girls a problem. Echo led us down into a grassy meadow shaped like a blast crater, with a small pond in the middle. Gathered at the water’s edge were several dozen nymphs. At least, I guessed they were nymphs. Like the ones at Camp Half-Blood, these wore gossamer dresses. Their feet were bare. They had elfish features, and their skin had a slightly greenish tinge.  
  
I didn’t understand what they were doing, but they were all crowded together in one spot, facing the pond and jostling for a better view. Several held up phone cameras, trying to get a shot over the heads of the others. I had never seen nymphs with phones.  
  
“What are they looking at?” Leo wondered.  
  
“Looking at,” Echo sighed.  
  
“One way to find out.” Hazel marched forward and began nudging her way through the crowd. “Excuse us. Pardon me.”  
  
“Hey!” one nymph complained. “We were here first!”  
  
“Yeah,” another sniffed. “He won’t be interested in you.”  
  
The second nymph had large red hearts painted on her cheeks. Over her dress, she wore a T-shirt that read: _OMG, I <3 N!!!!_  
  
“Uh, demigod business,” Leo said, trying to sound official. “Make room. Thanks.”  
  
The nymphs grumbled, but they parted to reveal a young man kneeling at the edge of the pond, gazing intently at the water.  
  
The fact that the guy at the pond was one super good-looking dude was unmissable. He had a chiseled face with lips and eyes that were somewhere between feminine beautiful and masculine handsome. Dark hair swept over his brow. He might’ve been seventeen or twenty, it was hard to say, but he was built like a dancer - with long graceful arms and muscular legs, perfect posture and an air of regal calm. He wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans, with a bow and quiver strapped to his back. The weapons obviously hadn’t been used in a while. The arrows were covered in dust. A spider had woven a web in the top of the bow.  
  
As I edged closer, I realized the guy’s face was unusually golden. In the sunset, the light was bouncing off a large flat sheet of Celestial bronze that lay at the bottom of the pond, washing Mr. Handsome’s features in a warm glow.  
  
The guy seemed fascinated with his reflection in the metal.  
  
Hazel inhaled sharply. “He’s gorgeous.”  
  
Around her, the nymphs squealed and clapped in agreement.  
  
“I am,” the young man murmured dreamily, his gaze still fixed on the water. “I am so gorgeous.”  
  
One of the nymphs showed her iPhone screen. “His latest YouTube video got a million hits in like, an hour. I think I was half of those!”  
  
The other nymphs giggled.  
  
“YouTube video?” Leo asked. “What does he do in the video, sing?”  
  
“No, silly!” the nymph chided. “He used to be a prince, and a wonderful hunter and stuff. But that doesn’t matter. Now he just... well, look!” She showed us the video. It was exactly what they were seeing in real life - the guy staring at himself in the pond.  
  
“He is sooooo hot!” said another girl. Her T-shirt read: _MRS. NARCISSUS._  
  
“Narcissus?” Leo asked.  
  
“Narcissus,” Echo agreed sadly.  
  
One of the nymphs had noticed her.  
  
“Oh, not you again!” Mrs. Narcissus tried to push Echo away, but she misjudged where the camouflaged girl was and ended up shoving several other nymphs.  
  
“You had your chance, Echo!” said the nymph with the iPhone. “He dumped you four thousand years ago! You are so not good enough for him.”  
  
“For him,” Echo said bitterly.  
  
“Wait.” Hazel clearly had trouble tearing her eyes away from the handsome guy, but she managed it. “What’s going on here? Why did Echo bring us here?”  
  
One nymph rolled her eyes. She was holding an autograph pen and a crumpled poster of Narcissus. “Echo was a nymph like us, a long time ago, but she was a total chatterbox! Gossiping, blah, blah, blah, all the time.”  
  
“I know!” another nymph shrieked. “Like, who could stand that? Just the other day, I told Cleopeia - you know she lives in the boulder next to me? - I said: Stop gossiping or you’ll end up like Echo. Cleopeia is such a big mouth! Did you hear what she said about that cloud nymph and the satyr?”  
  
“Totally!” said the nymph with the poster. “So anyway, as punishment for blabbing, Hera cursed Echo so she could only repeat things, which was fine with us. But then Echo fell in love with our gorgeous guy, Narcissus - as if he would ever notice her.”  
  
“As if!” said half a dozen others.  
  
“Now she’s got some weird idea he needs saving,” said Mrs. Narcissus. “She should just go away.”  
  
“Go away,” Echo growled back.  
  
“I’m so glad Narcissus is alive again,” said another nymph in a gray dress. She had the words _NARCISSUS + LAIEA_ written up and down her arms in black marker. “He’s like the best! And he’s in my territory.”  
  
“Oh, stop it, Laiea,” her friend said. “I’m the pond nymph. You’re just the rock nymph.”  
  
“Well, I’m the grass nymph,” another protested.  
  
“No, he obviously came here because he likes the wildflowers!” another said. “Those are mine!”  
  
The whole mob began arguing while Narcissus stared at the lake, ignoring them.  
  
“Hold it!” Leo yelled. “Ladies, hold it! I need to ask Narcissus something.”  
  
Slowly the nymphs settled down and went back to taking pictures.  
  
Leo knelt next to the handsome dude. “So, Narcissus. What’s up?”  
  
“Could you move?” Narcissus asked distractedly. “You’re ruining the view.”  
  
Leo looked in the water. His own reflection rippled next to Narcissus’s on the surface of the submerged bronze. There was no doubt the metal was a sheet of hammered Celestial bronze, roughly circular, about five feet in diameter.  
  
What it was doing in this pond, I wasn’t sure. Celestial bronze fell to earth in odd places. I’d heard that most pieces were cast off from Leo's dad's various workshops. Hephaestus would lose his temper when projects didn’t work out, and he’d toss his scraps into the mortal world. This piece looked like it might have been meant as a shield for a god, but it hadn’t turned out properly.  
  
“Right, great view,” Leo said. “Happy to move, but if you’re not using it, could I just take that sheet of bronze?”  
  
“No,” Narcissus said. “I love him. He’s so gorgeous.”  
  
Leo looked around to see if the nymphs were laughing. This had to be a huge joke. But they were swooning and nodding in agreement. Besides him and me, only Hazel seemed appalled. She wrinkled her nose as if she’d come to the conclusion that Narcissus smelled worse than he looked.  
  
“Man,” Leo said to Narcissus. “You do realize that you’re looking at yourself in the water, right?”  
  
“I am so great,” Narcissus sighed. He stretched out a hand longingly to touch the water, but held back. “No, I can’t make ripples. That ruins the image. Wow…I am so great.”  
  
“Yeah,” Leo muttered. “But if I took the bronze, you could still see yourself in the water. Or here...” He reached in his tool belt and pulled out a simple mirror the size of a monocle. “I’ll trade you.”  
  
Narcissus took the mirror, reluctantly, and admired himself. “Even you carry a picture of me? I don’t blame you. I am gorgeous. Thank you.” He set the mirror down and returned his attention to the pond. “But I already have a much better image. The color flatters me, don’t you think?”  
  
“Oh, gods, yes!” a nymph screamed. “Marry me, Narcissus!”  
  
“No, me!” another cried. “Would you sign my poster?”  
  
“No, sign my shirt!”  
  
“No, sign my forehead!”  
  
“No, sign my-”  
  
“Stop it!” Hazel snapped.  
  
“Stop it,” Echo agreed.  
  
I had lost sight of Echo again, but now I realized she was kneeling on the other side of Narcissus, waving her hand in front of his face as if trying to break his concentration. Narcissus didn’t even blink.  
  
The nymph fan club tried to shove Hazel out of the way, but she drew her cavalry sword and forced them back. “Snap out of it!” she yelled.  
  
“He won’t sign your sword,” the poster nymph complained.  
  
“He won’t marry you,” said the iPhone girl. “And you can’t take his bronze mirror! That’s what keeps him here!”  
  
“You’re all ridiculous,” Hazel said. “He’s so full of himself! How can you possibly like him?”  
  
“Like him,” Echo sighed, still waving her hand in front of his face.  
  
The others sighed along with her.  
  
“I am so hot,” Narcissus said sympathetically.

“Narcissus, listen.” Hazel kept her sword at the ready. “Echo brought us here to help you. Didn’t you, Echo?”  
  
“Echo,” said Echo.  
  
“Who?” Narcissus said.  
  
“The only girl who cares what happens to you, apparently,” Hazel said. “Do you remember dying?”  
  
Narcissus frowned. “I... no. That can’t be right. I am much too important to die.”  
  
“You died staring at yourself,” Hazel insisted. “I remember the story now. Nemesis was the goddess who cursed you, because you broke so many hearts. Your punishment was to fall in love with your own reflection.”  
  
“I love me so, so much,” Narcissus agreed.  
  
“You finally died,” Hazel continued. “I don’t know which version of the story is true. You either drowned yourself or turned into a flower hanging over the water or - Echo, which is it?”  
  
“Which is it?” she said hopelessly.  
  
Leo stood. “It doesn’t matter. The point is you’re alive again, man. You have a second chance. That’s what Nemesis was telling us. You can get up, and get on with your life. Echo is trying to save you. Or you can stay here and stare at yourself until you die again.”  
  
“Stay here!” all the nymphs screamed.  
  
“Marry me before you die!” another squeaked.  
  
Narcissus shook his head. “You just want my reflection. I don’t blame you, but you can’t have it. I belong to me.”  
  
Hazel sighed in exasperation. She glanced at the sun, which was sinking fast. Then she gestured with her sword toward the edge of the crater. “Leo, Cath, could we talk for a minute?”  
  
“Excuse us,” Leo told Narcissus. “Echo, want to come with?”  
  
“Come with,” Echo confirmed.  
  
The nymphs clustered around Narcissus again and began recording new videos and taking more photos.  
  
Hazel led the way until they were out of earshot. “Nemesis was right,” she said. “Some demigods can’t change their nature. Narcissus is going to stay there until he dies again.”  
  
“No,” Leo said.  
  
“No,” Echo agreed.  
  
“We need that bronze,” Leo said. “If we take it away, it might give Narcissus a reason to snap out of it. Echo could have a chance to save him.”  
  
“A chance to save him,” Echo said gratefully.  
  
Hazel stabbed her sword in the sand. “It could also make several dozen nymphs very angry with us,” she said. “And Narcissus might still know how to shoot his bow.”  
  
I pondered that. The sun was just about down. Nemesis had mentioned that Narcissus got agitated after dark, probably because he couldn’t see his reflection anymore. I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out what the goddess meant by agitated. We’d also had experience with mobs of crazed nymphs. I wasn’t anxious to repeat that.  
  
“Hazel,” he said, “your power with precious metal - can you just detect it, or can you actually summon it to you?”  
  
She frowned. “Sometimes I can summon it. I’ve never tried with a piece of Celestial bronze that big before. I might be able to draw it to me through the earth, but I’d have to be fairly close. It would take a lot of concentration, and it wouldn’t be fast.”  
  
“Be fast,” Echo warned.  
  
Leo cursed.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll have to try something risky. Hazel, how about you try to summon the bronze from right here? Make it sink through the sand and tunnel over to you, then grab it and run for the ship.”  
  
“But Narcissus is looking at it all the time,” she said.  
  
“All the time,” Echo echoed.  
  
“That’ll be my job,” Leo said. “Millie, Echo and I will cause a distraction.”  
  
“Distraction?” Echo asked.  
  
“I’ll explain,” Leo promised. “Are you willing?”  
  
“Willing,” Echo said.  
  
“Great,” Leo said. “Now, let’s hope we don’t die.”

Leo summoned some breath mints and a pair of welding goggles from his tool belt. The goggles weren’t exactly sunglasses, but they’d have to do. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. I used some machine oil to grease back his hair. I then gave Hazel my vest to put on - my leather jacket wasn't on the ship, but otherwise my style looked enough like Nemesis' to pull it off, especially when I tied a spare bowstring I still had in my pocket to a screwdriver - it wasn't the best makeshift whip, but nobody would pay that much attention to it (hopefully).

Leo stuck a wrench in his back pocket (why exactly, I wasn’t sure) and had me draw a tattoo on his biceps with a marker: _HOT STUFF_ , with a skull and crossbones.  
  
“What in the world are you thinking?” Hazel sounded pretty flustered.  
  
“I try not to think,” Leo admitted. “It interferes with being nuts. Just concentrate on moving that Celestial bronze. Echo, you ready?”  
  
“Ready,” she said.  
  
Leo took a deep breath. He strutted back toward the pond, and I snuck around to join them from the other side. “Leo is the coolest!” he shouted.  
  
“Leo is the coolest!” Echo shouted back.  
  
“Yeah, baby, check me out!”  
  
“Check me out!” Echo said.  
  
“Make way for the king!”  
  
“The king!”  
  
“Narcissus is weak!”  
  
“Weak!”  
  
The crowd of nymphs scattered in surprise. Leo shooed them away as if they were bothering him. “No autographs, girls. I know you want some Leo time, but I’m way too cool. You better just hang around that ugly dweeb Narcissus. He’s lame!”  
  
“Lame!” Echo said with enthusiasm.  
  
The nymphs muttered angrily.  
  
“What are you talking about?” one demanded.  
  
“You’re lame,” said another.  
  
Leo adjusted his goggles and smiled. He flexed his biceps and showed off his _HOT STUFF_ tattoo. He had the nymphs’ attention, if only because they were stunned; but Narcissus was still fixed on his own reflection.  
  
“You know how ugly Narcissus is?” Leo asked the crowd. “He’s so ugly, when he was born his mama thought he was a backward centaur - with a horse butt for a face.”  
  
Some of the nymphs gasped. Narcissus frowned, as though he was vaguely aware of a gnat buzzing around his head.  
  
“You know why his bow has cobwebs?” Leo continued. “He uses it to hunt for dates, but he can’t find one!”  
  
One of the nymphs laughed. The others quickly elbowed her into silence.  
  
Narcissus turned and scowled at Leo. “Who are you?”  
  
“I’m the Super-sized McShizzle, man!” Leo said. “I’m Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme. And the ladies love a bad boy.”  
  
“Love a bad boy!” Echo said, with a convincing squeal.  
  
Leo took out a pen and autographed the arm of one of the nymphs. “Narcissus is a loser! He’s so weak, he can’t bench-press a Kleenex. He’s so lame, when you look up lame on Wikipedia, it’s got a picture of Narcissus - only the picture’s so ugly, no one ever checks it out.”  
  
Narcissus knit his handsome eyebrows. His face was turning from bronze to salmon pink. For the moment, he’d totally forgotten about the pond, and I could see the sheet of bronze sinking into the sand.  
  
“What are you talking about?” Narcissus demanded. “I am amazing. Everyone knows this.”  
  
“Amazing at pure suck,” Leo said. “If I was as suck as you, I’d drown myself. Oh wait, you already did that..  
  
Another nymph giggled. Then another. Narcissus growled, which did make him look a little less handsome. Meanwhile Leo beamed and wiggled his eyebrows over his goggles and spread his hands, gesturing for applause.

I walked up from behind the boulder I'd been hiding behind. "Sorry, Narcissus, but you were getting boring. I decided to find a cuter guy than you and curse him to always be better than you.  
  
“That’s right!” Leo said. “Team Leo for the win!”  
  
“Team Leo for the win!” Echo shouted. She’d wriggled into the mob of nymphs, and because she was so hard to see, the nymphs apparently thought the voice came from one of their own.  
  
“Oh my god, I am so awesome!” Leo bellowed.  
  
“So awesome!” Echo yelled back.  
  
“He is funny,” a nymph ventured.  
  
“And cute, in a scrawny way,” another said.  
  
“Scrawny?” Leo asked. “Baby, I invented scrawny. Scrawny is the new sizzling hot. And I GOT the scrawny. Narcissus? He’s such a loser even the Underworld didn’t want him. He couldn’t get the ghost girls to date him.”  
  
“Eww,” said a nymph.  
  
“Eww!” Echo agreed.  
  
“Stop!” Narcissus got to his feet. “This is not right! This person is obviously not awesome, so he must be...” He struggled for the right words. It had probably been a long time since he’d talked about anything other than himself. “He must be tricking us.”  
  
Apparently Narcissus wasn’t completely stupid. Realization dawned on his face. He turned back to the pond. “The bronze mirror is gone! My reflection! Give me back to me!”  
  
“Team Leo!” one of the nymphs squeaked. But the others returned their attention to Narcissus.  
  
“I’m the beautiful one!” Narcissus insisted. “He’s stolen my mirror, and I’m going to leave unless we get it back!”  
  
The girls gasped. One pointed. “There!”  
  
Hazel was at the top of the crater, running away as fast as she could while lugging a large sheet of bronze.  
  
“Get it back!” cried a nymph.  
  
Probably against her will, Echo muttered, “Get it back.”  
  
“Yes!” Narcissus unslung his bow and grabbed an arrow from his dusty quiver. “The first one who gets that bronze, I will like you almost as much as I like me. I might even kiss you, right after I kiss my reflection!”  
  
“Oh my gods!” the nymphs screamed.  
  
“And kill those demigods!” Narcissus added, glaring very handsomely at Leo. “They are not as cool as me!”  
  
Leo and I ran for it, and we overtook Hazel, which was easy, since she was struggling with fifty pounds of Celestial bronze. Leo took one side of the metal plate and glanced back. Narcissus was nocking an arrow, but it was so old and brittle, it broke into splinters.  
  
“Ow!” he yelled very attractively. “My manicure!”  
  
Normally nymphs were quick - at least the ones at Camp Half-Blood were - but these were burdened with posters, T-shirts, and other Narcissus™ merchandise. The nymphs also weren’t great at working as a team. They kept stumbling over one another, pushing and shoving. Echo made things worse by running among them, tripping and tackling as many as she could.  
  
Still, they were closing rapidly.  
  
“Call Arion!” Leo gasped.  
  
“Already did!” Hazel said.  
  
We ran for the beach. We made it to the edge of the water and could see the Argo II, but there was no way to get there. It was much too far to swim, even if they hadn’t been toting bronze.  
  
I turned. The mob was coming over the dunes, Narcissus in the lead, holding his bow like a band major’s baton. The nymphs had conjured assorted weapons. Some held rocks. Some had wooden clubs wreathed in flowers. A few of the water nymphs had squirt guns - which seemed not quite as terrifying - but the look in their eyes was still murderous.

“Oh, man,” Leo muttered, summoning fire in his free hand. “Straight-up fighting isn’t my thing.”  
  
“Hold the Celestial bronze.” Hazel drew her sword. “Get behind me!”  
  
“Get behind me!” Echo repeated. The camouflaged girl was racing ahead of the mob now. She stopped in front of Leo and turned, spreading her arms as if she meant to personally shield him.  
  
“Echo? You’re one brave nymph.”  
  
“Brave nymph?” Her tone made it a question.  
  
“I’m proud to have you on Team Leo,” he said. “If we survive this, you should forget Narcissus.”  
  
“Forget Narcissus?” she said uncertainly.  
  
“You’re way too good for him,” I added  
  
The nymphs surrounded us in a semicircle.  
  
“Trickery!” Narcissus said. “They don’t love me, girls! We all love me, don’t we?”  
  
“Yes!” the girls screamed, except for one confused nymph in a yellow dress who squeaked, “Team Leo!”  
  
“Kill them!” Narcissus ordered.  
  
The nymphs surged forward, but the sand in front of them exploded. Arion raced out of nowhere, circling the mob so quickly he created a sandstorm, showering the nymphs in white lime, spraying their eyes.  
  
“I love this horse!” Leo said.  
  
The nymphs collapsed, coughing and gagging. Narcissus stumbled around blindly, swinging his bow like he was trying to hit a piñata.  
  
Hazel climbed into the saddle, hoisted up the bronze, and offered me a hand. I climbed on behind her and held out my hand to Leo.  
  
“We can’t leave Echo!” he said.  
  
“Leave Echo,” the nymph repeated.  
  
She smiled, and for the first time I could clearly see her face. She really was pretty. Her eyes were bluer than I’d realized - they reminded me of my siblings. How had I missed that?  
  
“Why?” Leo asked. “You don’t think you can still save Narcissus...”  
  
“Save Narcissus,” she said confidently. And even though it was only an echo, I could tell that she meant it. She’d been given a second chance at life, and she was determined to use it to save the guy she loved - even if he was a completely hopeless (though very handsome) moron.  
  
Leo looked like he wanted to protest, but Echo leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then pushed him gently away.  
  
“Leo, come on!” Hazel called.  
  
The other nymphs were starting to recover. They wiped the lime out of their eyes, which were now glowing green with anger. Leo looked for Echo again, but she had dissolved into the scenery.  
  
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”  
  
He climbed up behind me. Arion took off across the water, the nymphs screaming behind them, and Narcissus shouting, “Bring me back! Bring me back!”  
  
I was determined never to forget Echo’s face. She deserved at least one person who saw her and knew how good she was. I closed my eyes, but the memory of her smile was already fading.


	22. Chapter 22

**PIPER**

I didn’t want to use the knife.  
  
But sitting in Jason’s cabin, waiting for him to wake up, I felt alone and helpless.  
  
Jason’s face was so pale, he might’ve been dead. I remembered the awful sound of that brick hitting his forehead - an injury that had happened only because he’d tried to shield me from the Romans.  
  
Even with Cathy's singing and the nectar and ambrosia we’d managed to force-feed him, I couldn’t be sure he would be okay when he woke up. What if he’d lost his memories again - but this time, his memories of me?  
  
That would be the cruelest trick the gods had played on me yet, and they’d played some pretty cruel tricks.  
  
I heard Gleeson Hedge in his room next door, humming a military song - “Stars and Stripes Forever,” maybe? Since the satellite TV was out, the satyr was probably sitting on his bunk reading back issues of Guns & Ammo magazine. He wasn’t a bad chaperone, but he was definitely the most warlike old goat I had ever met.  
  
Of course I was grateful to the satyr. He had helped my dad, movie actor Tristan McLean, get back on his feet after being kidnapped by giants the past winter. A few weeks ago, Hedge had asked his girlfriend, Mellie, to take charge of the McLean household so he could come along to help with this quest.  
  
Coach Hedge had tried to make it sound like returning to Camp Half-Blood had been all his idea, but I suspected there was more to it. The last few weeks, whenever I called home, my dad and Mellie had asked me what was wrong. Maybe something in my voice had tipped them off.  
  
I couldn’t share the visions I’d seen. They were too disturbing. Besides, my dad had taken a potion that had erased all of my demigod secrets from his memory. But he could still tell when I was upset, and I was pretty sure my dad had encouraged Coach to look out for me.  
  
I shouldn’t draw the blade. It would only make me feel worse.  
  
Finally the temptation was too great. I unsheathed Katoptris. It didn’t look very special, just a triangular blade with an unadorned hilt, but it had once been owned by Helen of Troy. The dagger’s name meant “looking glass.”  
  
I gazed at the bronze blade. At first, I saw only my reflection. Then light rippled across the metal. I saw a crowd of Roman demigods gathered in the forum. The blond scarecrow-looking kid, Octavian, was speaking to the mob, shaking his fist. I couldn’t hear him, but the gist was obvious: _We need to kill those Greeks!_  
  
Reyna, the praetor, stood to one side, her face tight with suppressed emotion. Bitterness? Anger? I wasn’t sure.  
  
I’d been prepared to hate Reyna, but I couldn’t. During the feast in the forum, I had admired the way Reyna kept her feelings in check.  
  
Reyna had sized up our relationship right away. As a daughter of Aphrodite, I could tell stuff like that. Yet Reyna had stayed polite and in control. She’d put her camp’s needs ahead of her emotions. She’d given the Greeks a fair chance... right up until the Argo II had started destroying her city.  
  
She’d almost made me feel guilty about being Jason’s girlfriend, though that was silly. Jason hadn’t ever been Reyna’s boyfriend, not really.  
  
Maybe Reyna wasn’t so bad, but it didn’t matter now. We’d messed up the chance for peace. My power of persuasion had, for once, done absolutely no good.  
  
My secret fear? Maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough. I had never wanted to make friends with the Romans. I was too worried about losing Jason to his old life. Maybe unconsciously I hadn’t put my best effort into the charmspeak.  
  
Now Jason was hurt. The ship had been almost destroyed. And according to my dagger, that crazy teddy-bear-strangling kid, Octavian, was whipping the Romans into a war frenzy.  
  
The scene in the blade shifted. There was a rapid series of images I’d seen before, but I still didn’t understand them: Jason riding into battle on horseback, his eyes gold instead of blue; a woman in an old-fashioned Southern belle dress, standing in an oceanside park with palm trees; a bull with the face of a bearded man, rising out of a river; and two giants in matching yellow togas, hoisting a rope on a pulley system, lifting a large bronze vase out of a pit.  
  
Then came the worst vision: I saw myself with Jason and Percy, standing waist-deep in water at the bottom of a dark circular chamber, like a giant well. Ghostly shapes moved through the water as it rose rapidly. I clawed at the walls, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go. The water reached our chests. Jason was pulled under. Percy stumbled and disappeared.  
  
How could a child of the sea god drown? I didn’t know, but I watched myself in the vision, alone and thrashing in the dark, until the water rose over my head.  
  
I shut my eyes. _Don’t show me that again,_  I pleaded. _Show me something helpful._  
  
I forced myself to look at the blade again.  
  
This time, I saw an empty highway cutting between fields of wheat and sunflowers. A mileage marker read: TOPEKA 32. On the shoulder of the road stood a man in khaki shorts and a purple camp shirt. His face was lost in the shadow of a broad hat, the brim wreathed in leafy vines. He held up a silver goblet and beckoned to me. Somehow I knew he was offering her some sort of gift - a cure, or an antidote.  
  
“Hey,” Jason croaked.  
  
I was so startled I dropped the knife. “You’re awake!”  
  
“Don’t sound so surprised.” Jason touched his bandaged head and frowned. “What... what happened? I remember the explosions, and-”  
  
“You remember who I am?”  
  
Jason tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful wince. “Last I checked, you were my awesome girlfriend Piper. Unless something has changed since I was out?”  
  
I was so relieved I almost sobbed. I helped him sit up and gave him some nectar to sip while I brought him up to speed. I was just explaining Leo’s plan to fix the ship when I heard horse hooves clomping across the deck over their heads.  
  
Moments later, Leo and Cathy stumbled to a stop in the doorway, carrying a large sheet of hammered bronze between them. Hazel stood beside them, looking increasingly green with each gentle sway of the ship.  
  
“Gods of Olympus.” I stared at Leo. “What happened to you?”  
  
His hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a T-shirt that read _HOT STUFF, BAD BOY,_ and _TEAM LEO._  
  
“Long story,” he said. “Others back?”  
  
“Not yet,” I said.  
  
Leo cursed. Then he noticed Jason sitting up, and his face brightened. “Hey, man! Glad you’re better. I’ll be in the engine room.”  
  
He ran off with the sheet of bronze, leaving Hazel and Cathy in the doorway.  
  
I raised an eyebrow at them. “Team Leo?”  
  
“We met Narcissus,” Cathy said, which didn’t really explain much. “Also Nemesis, the revenge goddess.”  
  
Jason sighed. “I miss all the fun.”  
  
On the deck above, something went THUMP, as if a heavy creature had landed. Annabeth and Percy came running down the hall. Percy was toting a steaming five-gallon plastic bucket that smelled horrible. Annabeth had a patch of black sticky stuff in her hair. Percy’s shirt was covered in it.  
  
“Roofing tar?” I guessed.  
  
Frank stumbled up behind them, which made the hallway pretty jam-packed with demigods. Frank had a big smear of the black sludge down his face.  
  
“Ran into some tar monsters,” Annabeth said. “Hey, Jason, glad you’re awake. Cathy, Hazel, where’s Leo?”  
  
Hazel pointed down. “Engine room.”  
  
Suddenly the entire ship listed to port. The demigods stumbled. Percy almost spilled his bucket of tar.  
  
“Uh, what was that?” he demanded.  
  
“Oh...” Hazel looked embarrassed. “We may have angered the nymphs who live in this lake. Like... all of them.”

“Great.” Percy handed the bucket of tar to Frank and Annabeth. “You guys help Leo. I’ll hold off the water spirits as long as I can.”  
  
“On it!” Frank promised.  
  
The three of them ran off, leaving Hazel and Cathy at the cabin door. The ship listed again, and Hazel hugged her stomach like she was going to be sick.  
  
“I’ll just...” She swallowed, pointed weakly down the passageway, and ran off.

Cathy walked over and put the back of her hand on Jason's cheek, then on the not-hit-with-a-brick side of his forehead. I waited anxiously for her verdict.

"Well, your temperature is back to normal, so that's good. I think maybe you'll have some headaches and nausea, but you'll be fine in a few hours. A full day at most. I'm going to check on Hazel, okay?" I nodded, relieved to be certain he would be alright.  
  
Jason and I stayed below as the ship rocked back and forth. For a hero, I felt pretty useless. Waves crashed against the hull as angry voices came from above deck - Percy shouting, Coach Hedge yelling at the lake. Festus the figurehead breathed fire several times. Down the hall, Hazel moaned miserably in her cabin. In the engine room below, it sounded like Leo and the others were doing an Irish line dance with anvils tied to their feet. After what seemed like hours, the engine began to hum. The oars creaked and groaned, and I felt the ship lift into the air.  
  
The rocking and shaking stopped. The ship became quiet except for the drone of machinery. Finally Leo emerged from the engine room. He was caked in sweat, lime dust, and tar. His T-shirt looked like it had been caught in an escalator and chewed to shreds. The _TEAM LEO_ on his chest now read: _AM LEO_. But he grinned like a madman and announced that they were safely under way.  
  
“Meeting in the mess hall, one hour,” he said. “Crazy day, huh?”  
  
After everyone had cleaned up, Coach Hedge took the helm and the demigods gathered below for dinner. It was the first time we’d all sat down together - just the eight of us. Maybe our presence should’ve reassured me, but seeing all of us in one place only reminded me that the Prophecy of Eight was unfolding at last. No more waiting for Leo to finish the ship. No more easy days at Camp Half-Blood, pretending the future was still a long way off. We were under way, with a bunch of angry Romans behind us and the ancient lands ahead. The giants would be waiting. Gaea was rising. And unless we succeeded in this quest, the world would be destroyed.  
  
The others must’ve felt it too. The tension in the mess hall was like an electrical storm brewing, which was totally possible, considering Percy’s and Jason’s powers. In an awkward moment, the two boys tried to sit in the same chair at the head of the table. Sparks literally flew from Jason’s hands. After a brief silent standoff, like they were both thinking, _Seriously, dude?,_ they ceded the chair to Annabeth and sat at opposite sides of the table.  
  
The crew compared notes on what had happened in Salt Lake City, but even Leo’s ridiculous story about how they tricked Narcissus wasn’t enough to cheer up the group.  
  
“So where to now?” Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. “I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there’s still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic.”  
  
Percy was eating a piece of pie, which for some reason was completely blue - filling, crust, even the whipped cream. “We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter,” he said. “Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren’t far behind us.”  
  
That didn’t improve the mood around the table. I didn’t want to say anything, but I felt obliged... and a little guilty. “I don’t suppose we should go back and try to reason with the Romans? Maybe- maybe I didn’t try hard enough with the charmspeak.”  
  
Jason took my hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Pipes. Or Leo’s,” he added quickly. “Whatever happened, it was Gaea’s doing, to drive the two camps apart.”  
  
I was grateful for his support, but I still felt uneasy. “Maybe if we could explain that, though-”  
  
“With no proof?” Annabeth asked. “And no idea what really happened? I appreciate what you’re saying, Piper. I don’t want the Romans on our bad side, but until we understand what Gaea’s up to, going back is suicide.”  
  
“She’s right,” Hazel said. She still looked a little queasy from seasickness, but she was trying to eat a few saltine crackers. The rim of her plate was embedded with rubies, and I was pretty sure they hadn’t been there at the beginning of the meal. “Reyna might listen, but Octavian won’t. The Romans have honor to think about. They’ve been attacked. They’ll shoot first and ask questions post hac.”  
  
I stared at my own dinner. The magical plates could conjure up a great selection of vegetarian stuff. I especially liked the avocado and grilled pepper quesadilla, but tonight I didn’t have much of an appetite.  
  
I thought about the visions I’d seen in the knife: Jason with golden eyes; the bull with the human head; the two giants in yellow togas hoisting a bronze jar from a pit. Worst of all, I remembered myself drowning in black water.  
  
I had always liked the water. I had good memories of surfing with dad. But since I’d started seeing that vision in Katoptris, I’d been thinking more and more of an old Cherokee story her granddad used to tell to keep me away from the river near his cabin. He told me the Cherokees believed in good water spirits, like the naiads of the Greeks; but they also believed in evil water spirits, the water cannibals, who hunted mortals with invisible arrows and were especially fond of drowning small children.  
  
“You’re right,” I decided. “We have to keep going. Not just because of the Romans. We have to hurry.”  
  
Hazel nodded. “Nemesis said we have only six days until Nico dies and Rome is destroyed.”  
  
Jason frowned. “You mean Rome Rome, not New Rome?”  
  
“I think,” Hazel said. “But if so, that’s not much time.”  
  
“Why six days?” Percy wondered. “And how are they going to destroy Rome?”  
  
No one answered. I didn’t want to add further bad news, but I felt I had to.  
  
“There’s more,” I said. “I’ve been seeing some things in my knife.”  
  
The big kid, Frank, froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. “Things such as...?”  
  
“They don’t really make sense,” Piper said, “just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins.”  
  
Annabeth stared at the magical video feed from Camp Half-Blood on the wall. Right now it showed the living room in the Big House: a cozy fire on the hearth and Seymour, the stuffed leopard head, snoring contentedly above the mantel.  
  
“Twins, like in Ella’s prophecy,” Annabeth said. “If we could figure out those lines, it might help.”  
  
“Wisdom’s daughter walks alone,” Percy said. “The Mark of Athena burns through Rome. Annabeth, that’s got to mean you. Juno told me... well, she said you had a hard task ahead of you in Rome. She said she doubted you could do it. But I know she’s wrong.”  
  
Annabeth took a long breath. “Reyna was about to tell us something right before the ship fired on us. She said there was an old legend among the Roman praetors - something that had to do with Athena. She said it might be the reason Greeks and Romans could never get along.”  
  
Leo, Cathy and Hazel exchanged nervous looks.  
  
“Nemesis mentioned something similar,” Leo said. “She talked about an old score that had to be settled-”  
  
“The one thing that might bring the gods’ two natures into harmony,” Hazel recalled. “‘An old wrong finally avenged.’”  
  
Percy drew a frowny face in his blue whipped cream. “I was only a praetor for about two hours. Jason, you ever hear a legend like that?”  
  
Jason was still holding my hand. His fingers had turned clammy.  
  
“I... uh, I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll give it some thought.”  
  
Percy narrowed his eyes. “You’re not sure?”  
  
Jason didn’t respond. I wanted to ask him what was wrong. I could tell he didn’t want to discuss this old legend. I caught his eye, and he pleaded silently, _Later_.  
  
Cathy broke the silence. “What about the other lines?” She was sketching on a small notebook without looking at it. “Twins snuff out the angel’s breath, Who holds the key to endless death.”  
  
“Giants’ bane stands gold and pale,” Frank added, “Won through pain from a woven jail.”  
  
“Giants’ bane,” Leo said. “Anything that’s a giants’ bane is good for us, right? That’s probably what we need to find. If it can help the gods get their schizophrenic act together, that’s good.”  
  
Percy nodded. “We can’t kill the giants without the help of the gods.”  
  
Jason turned to Frank and Hazel. “I thought you guys killed that one giant in Alaska without a god’s help, just the two of you.”  
  
“Alcyoneus was a special case,” Frank said. “He was only immortal in the territory where he was reborn - Alaska. But not in Canada. I wish I could kill all the giants by dragging them across the border from Alaska into Canada, but...” He shrugged. “Percy’s right, we’ll need the gods.”  
  
I gazed at the walls. I really wished Leo hadn’t enchanted them with images of Camp Half-Blood. It was like a doorway to home that I could never go through. I watched the hearth of Hestia burning in the middle of the green as the cabins turned off their lights for curfew.  
  
I wondered how the Roman demigods, Frank and Hazel, felt about those images. They’d never even been to Camp Half-Blood. Did it seem alien to them, or unfair that Camp Jupiter wasn’t represented? Did it make them miss their own home?  
  
The other lines of the prophecy turned in my mind. What was a woven jail? How could twins snuff out an angel’s breath? The key to endless death didn’t sound very cheerful, either.  
  
“So...” Leo pushed his chair away from the table. “First things first, I guess. We’ll have to put down in the morning to finish repairs.”  
  
“Someplace close to a city,” Annabeth suggested, “in case we need supplies. But somewhere out of the way, so the Romans will have trouble finding us. Any ideas?”  
  
No one spoke. I remembered her vision in the knife: the strange man in purple, holding out a goblet and beckoning to me. He’d been standing in front of a sign that read TOPEKA 32.  
  
“Well,” I ventured, “how do you guys feel about Kansas?”  
  
* * * * *  
  
I had trouble falling asleep.  
  
Coach Hedge spent the first hour after curfew doing his nightly duty, walking up and down the passageway yelling, “Lights out! Settle down! Try to sneak out, and I’ll smack you back to Long Island!”  
  
He banged his baseball bat against a cabin door whenever he heard a noise, shouting at everyone to go to sleep, which made it impossible for anyone to go to sleep. I figured this was the most fun the satyr had had since he’d pretended to be a gym teacher at the Wilderness School.  
  
I stared at the bronze beams on the ceiling. My cabin was pretty cozy. Leo had programmed their quarters to adjust automatically to the occupant’s preferred temperature, so it was never too cold or too hot. The mattress and the pillows were stuffed with pegasus down (no pegasi were harmed in the making of these products, Leo had assured us), so they were über-comfortable. A bronze lantern hung from the ceiling, glowing at whatever brightness I wished. The lantern’s sides were perforated with pinholes, so at night glimmering constellations drifted across her walls.

I had so many things on my mind, I thought I’d never sleep. But there was something peaceful about the rocking of the boat and the drone of the aerial oars as they scooped through the sky.  
  
Finally my eyelids got heavy, and I drifted off.  
  
It seemed like only a few seconds had passed before I woke to the breakfast bell.  
  
“Yo, Piper!” Leo knocked on her door. “We’re landing!”  
  
“Landing?” I sat up groggily.  
  
Leo opened my door and poked his head in. He had his hand over his eyes, which would’ve been a nice gesture if he hadn’t been peeking through his fingers. “You decent?”  
  
“Leo!”  
  
“Sorry.” He grinned. “Hey, nice Power Ranger jammies.”  
  
“They are not Power Rangers! They’re Cherokee eagles!”  
  
“Yeah, sure. Anyway, we’re setting down a few miles outside Topeka, as requested. And, um...” He glanced out in the passageway, then leaned inside again. “Thanks for not hating me, about blowing up the Romans yesterday.”  
  
I rubbed my eyes. The feast in New Rome had been only yesterday? “That’s okay, Leo. You weren’t in control of yourself.”  
  
“Yeah, but still... you didn’t have to stick up for me.”  
  
“Are you kidding? You’re like the annoying little brother I never had. Of course I’ll stick up for you.”  
  
“Uh... thanks?”  
  
From above, Coach Hedge yelled, “Thar she blows! Kansas, ahoy!”  
  
“Holy Hephaestus,” Leo muttered. “He really needs to work on his shipspeak. I’d better get above deck.”  
  
By the time I had showered, changed, and grabbed a bagel from the mess hall, I could hear the ship’s landing gear extending. I climbed on deck and joined the others as the Argo II settled in the middle of a field of sunflowers. The oars retracted. The gangplank lowered itself.  
  
The morning air smelled of irrigation, warm plants, and fertilized earth. Not a bad smell. It reminded me of Grandpa Tom’s place in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, back on the reservation.  
  
Percy was the first to notice me. He smiled in greeting, which for some reason surprised me. He was wearing faded jeans and a fresh orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, as if he’d never been away from the Greek side. The new clothes had probably helped his mood - and of course the fact that he was standing at the rail with his arm around Annabeth.  
  
I was happy to see Annabeth with a sparkle in her eyes, because I had never had a better friend, save for Cathy. For months, Annabeth had been tormenting herself, her every waking moment consumed with the search for Percy. Now, despite the dangerous quest they were facing, at least she had her boyfriend back.  
  
“So!” Annabeth plucked the bagel out of my hand and took a bite, but that didn’t bother me. Back at camp, we’d had a running joke about stealing each other’s breakfast. “Here we are. What’s the plan?”  
  
“I want to check out the highway,” I said. “Find the sign that says Topeka 32.”  
  
Leo spun his Wii controller in a circle, and the sails lowered themselves. “We shouldn’t be far,” he said. “Festus and I calculated the landing as best we could. What do you expect to find at the mile marker?”

"Mile marker?" Cathy came up to us, braiding her hair, which was wet from her shower.  
  
I explained what I’d seen in the knife - the man in purple with a goblet. I kept quiet about the other images, though, like the vision of Percy, Jason, and myself drowning. I wasn’t sure what it meant, anyway; and everyone seemed in such better spirits this morning, I didn’t want to ruin the mood.  
  
“Purple shirt?” Jason asked. “Vines on his hat? Sounds like Bacchus.”  
  
“Dionysus,” Percy muttered. “If we came all the way to Kansas to see Mr. D-”  
  
“Bacchus isn’t so bad,” Jason said. “I don’t like his followers much...”  
  
I shuddered. Jason, Leo, Cathy and I had had an encounter with the maenads a few months ago and almost gotten torn to pieces.  
  
“But the god himself is okay,” Jason continued. “I did him a favor once up in the wine country.”  
  
Percy looked appalled. “Whatever, man. Maybe he’s better on the Roman side. But why would he be hanging around in Kansas? Didn’t Zeus order the gods to cease all contact with mortals?”  
  
Frank grunted. The big guy was wearing a blue tracksuit this morning, like he was ready to go for a jog in the sunflowers.  
  
“The gods haven’t been very good at following that order,” he noted. “Besides, if the gods have gone schizophrenic like Hazel, Leo and Cathy said, then who knows what’s going on with the Olympians? Could be some pretty bad stuff out there.”  
  
“Sounds dangerous!” Leo agreed cheerfully. “Well... you guys have fun. I’ve got to finish repairs on the hull. Coach Hedge is gonna work on the broken crossbows. And, uh, Annabeth, Millie - I could really use you guys' help. You two are the only other person who even sort of understand engineering.”  
  
Annabeth looked apologetically at Percy. “He’s right. I should stay and help.”  
  
“I’ll come back to you.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Promise.”  
  
They were so easy together, it made my heart ache.  
  
Jason was great, of course. But sometimes he acted so distant, like last night, when he’d been reluctant to talk about that old Roman legend. So often he seemed to be thinking of his old life at Camp Jupiter. I wondered if I would ever be able to break through that barrier.  
  
The trip to Camp Jupiter, seeing Reyna in person, hadn’t helped. Neither did the fact that Jason had chosen to wear a purple shirt today - the color of the Romans.  
  
Frank slid his bow off his shoulder and propped it against the rail. “I think I should turn into a bird or something and fly around, keep an eye out for Roman eagles.”  
  
“Why a crow?” Leo asked. “Man, if you can turn into a dragon, why don’t you just turn into a dragon every time? That’s the coolest.”  
  
Frank’s face looked like it was being infused with cranberry juice. “That’s like asking why you don’t bench-press your maximum weight every time you lift. Because it’s hard, and you’d hurt yourself. Turning into a dragon isn’t easy.”  
  
“Oh.” Leo nodded. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t lift weights.”  
  
“Yeah. Well, maybe you should consider it, Mr.-”  
  
Hazel and Cathy stepped between them.  
  
“I’ll help you, Frank,” she said. “I can summon Arion and scout around below.”  
  
“Sure,” Frank said, still glaring at Leo. “Yeah, thanks.”

"If you do turn into a bird, make it a crow. If something bad happens, just scream at me in your mind - that should work for about half a mile distance, if you concentrate hard enough." Frank nodded, and Cathy and Hazel shot each other an exhausted look as Leo glared at Frank.  
  
I wondered what was going on with those four. It almost seemed like Hazel and Leo had a history. So far as I knew, they’d met for the first time just yesterday. For some reason though, each of the boys seemed to think of the other badly.  
  
Hazel turned to Percy. “Just be careful when you go out there. Lots of fields, lots of crops. Could be karpoi on the loose.”  
  
“Karpoi?” I asked.  
  
“Grain spirits,” Hazel said. “You don’t want to meet them.”  
  
I didn’t see how a grain spirit could be so bad, but Hazel’s tone convinced me not to ask.  
  
“That leaves three of us to check on the mile marker,” Percy said. “Me, Jason, Piper. I’m not psyched about seeing Mr. D again. That guy is a pain. But, Jason, if you’re on better terms with him-”  
  
“Yeah,” Jason said. “If we find him, I’ll talk to him. Piper, it’s your vision. You should take the lead.”  
  
I shivered. I’d seen the three of us drowning in that dark well. Was Kansas where it would happen? That didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t be sure.  
  
“Of course,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “Let’s find the highway.”


	23. Chapter 23

**EMILY-CATHERINE**

We were a little surprised when Piper came back on a pegasus with two unconscious demigods. While Frank and Hazel tended to Blackjack, Annabeth, Leo and I helped get Piper and the boys to the sickbay.  
  
“At this rate, we’re going to run out of ambrosia,” Coach Hedge grumbled as we tended their wounds. “How come I never get invited on these violent trips?”  
  
Piper sat at Jason’s side. She herself felt fine after a swig of nectar and some water, but she was still worried about the boys.  
  
“Leo,” she said, “are we ready to sail?”  
  
“Yeah, but-”  
  
“Set course for Atlanta. I’ll explain later.”  
  
“But... okay.” He hurried off.  
  
Annabeth didn’t argue with Piper either. She was too busy examining a dent on the back of Percy’s head, in the shape of - was that a horseshoe?  
  
“What hit him?” I demanded.  
  
“Blackjack,” Piper said.  
  
“What?”  
  
Piper explained while Coach Hedge applied some healing paste to the boys’ heads. I hummed a hymn to my father as I force-fed them both tiny bites of ambrosia. I’d never been impressed with Hedge’s nursing abilities before, but we must have done something right.  
  
Within a few minutes, Jason and Percy were sitting up in their berths and able to talk in complete sentences. Both had fuzzy memories of what had happened. When Piper described their duel on the highway, Jason winced.  
  
“Knocked out twice in two days,” he muttered. “Some demigod.” He glanced sheepishly at Percy. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to blast you.”  
  
Percy’s shirt was peppered with burn holes. His hair was even more disheveled than normal. Despite that, he managed a weak laugh. “Not the first time. Your big sister got me good once at camp.” I smiled at the memory. "Shouldn't have doused her with the creek, dude." He grinned at me.  
  
“Yeah, but... I could have killed you.”  
  
“Or I could have killed you,” Percy said.  
  
Jason shrugged. “If there’d been an ocean in Kansas, maybe.”  
  
“I don’t need an ocean-”  
  
“Boys,” Annabeth interrupted, “I’m sure you both would’ve been wonderful at killing each other. But right now, you need some rest.”  
  
“Food first,” Percy said. “Please? And we really need to talk. Bacchus said some things that don’t-”  
  
“Bacchus?” Annabeth raised her hand. “Okay, fine. We need to talk. Mess hall. Ten minutes. I’ll tell the others. And please, Percy... change your clothes. You smell like you’ve been run over by an electric horse.”  
  
Leo gave the helm to Coach Hedge again, after making the satyr promise he would not steer them to the nearest military base “for fun.”  
  
We gathered around the dining table, and Piper explained what had happened at TOPEKA 32 - their conversation with Bacchus, the trap sprung by Gaea, the eidolons that had possessed the boys.  
  
“Of course!” Hazel slapped the table, which startled Frank so much, he dropped his burrito. “That’s what happened to Leo too.”

“So it wasn’t my fault.” Leo exhaled, squeezing my hand. “I didn’t start World War Three. I just got possessed by an evil spirit. That’s a relief!”  
  
“But the Romans don’t know that,” Annabeth said. “And why would they take our word for it?”  
  
“We could contact Reyna,” Jason suggested. “She would believe us.”  
  
Hearing the way Jason said her name, like it was a lifeline to his past, made Piper’s expression drop.  
  
Jason turned to her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. “You could convince her, Pipes. I know you could.”  
  
Annabeth looked at Piper sympathetically, as if to say: _Boys are so clueless_. Hazel winced. I squinted my eyes a little.  
  
“I could try,” she said halfheartedly. “But Octavian is the one we have to worry about. In my dagger blade, I saw him taking control of the Roman crowd. I’m not sure Reyna can stop him.”  
  
Jason’s expression darkened. The other Romans - Hazel and Frank - nodded in agreement.  
  
“She’s right,” Frank said. “This afternoon when we were scouting, we saw eagles again. They were a long way off, but closing fast. Octavian is on the warpath.”  
  
Hazel grimaced. “This is exactly the sort of opportunity Octavian has always wanted. He’ll try to seize power. If Reyna objects, he’ll say she’s soft on the Greeks. As for those eagles... It’s like they could smell us.”  
  
“They can,” Jason said. “Roman eagles can hunt demigods by their magical scent even better than monsters can. This ship might conceal us somewhat, but not completely - not from them.”  
  
Leo  intertwined our fingers, and drummed his index and middle finger on the back of my hand. “Great. I should have installed a smoke screen that makes the ship smell like a giant chicken nugget. Remind me to invent that, next time.”  
  
Hazel frowned. “What is a chicken nugget?”  
  
“Oh, man...” Leo shook his head in amazement. “That’s right. You’ve missed the last like, seventy years. Well, my apprentice, a chicken nugget-”  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. “The point is, we’ll have a hard time explaining the truth to the Romans. Even if they believe us-”  
  
“You’re right.” Jason leaned forward. “We should just keep going. Once we’re over the Atlantic, we’ll be safe - at least from the legion.”

“How can you be sure?” Piper asked. “Why wouldn’t they follow us?”  
  
He shook his head. “You heard Reyna talking about the ancient lands. They’re much too dangerous. Roman demigods have been forbidden to go there for generations. Even Octavian couldn’t get around that rule.”  
  
I chewed on a mushroom from my risotto, but it tasted like it had turned to cardboard. “So, if we go there...”  
  
“We’ll be outlaws as well as traitors,” Jason confirmed. “Any Roman demigod would have the right to kill us on sight. But I wouldn’t worry about that. If we get across the Atlantic, they’ll give up on chasing us. They’ll assume that we’ll die in the Mediterranean - the Mare Nostrum.”  
  
Percy pointed his pizza slice at Jason. “You, sir, are a ray of sunshine.”  
  
Jason didn’t argue. The other demigods stared at their plates, except for Percy, who continued to enjoy his pizza. Where he put all that food, I had never known. The guy could eat like a satyr.  
  
“So let’s plan ahead,” Percy suggested, “and make sure we don’t die. Mr. D - Bacchus - Ugh, do I have to call him Mr. B now? Anyway, he mentioned the twins in Ella’s prophecy. Two giants. Otis and, uh, something that started with an F?”  
  
“Ephialtes,” Jason said.  
  
“Twin giants, like Piper saw in her blade...” Annabeth ran her finger along the rim of her cup. “I remember a story about twin giants. They tried to reach Mount Olympus by piling up a bunch of mountains.”  
  
Frank nearly choked. “Well, that’s great. Giants who can use mountains like building blocks. And you say Bacchus killed these guys with a pinecone on a stick?”  
  
“Something like that,” Percy said. “I don’t think we should count on his help this time. He wanted a tribute, and he made it pretty clear it would be a tribute we couldn’t handle.”  
  
Silence fell around the table. I could hear Coach Hedge above deck singing “Blow the Man Down,” except he didn’t know the lyrics, so he mostly sang, “Blah-blah-hum-de-dum-dum.”  
  
“She wants two of us,” Piper murmured eventually.  
  
Everyone turned to look at her.  
  
Piper hated being the center of attention. Maybe that was strange for a child of Aphrodite, but she’d watched her dad, the movie star, deal with fame for years. I remembered when Aphrodite had claimed her at the bonfire in front of the entire camp, zapping her with a magic beauty-queen makeover. She'd told me afterwards that it'd been the most embarrassing moment of her life.  
  
“Today on the highway,” she said, “Gaea told me that she needed the blood of only two demigods - one female, one male. She-she asked me to choose which boy would die.”  
  
“But neither of us died. You saved us.” She didn't look any better after Jason's words.  
  
“I know. It’s just... Why would she want that?”  
  
Leo whistled softly. “Guys, remember at the Wolf House? Our favorite ice princess, Khione? She talked about spilling Jason’s blood, how it would taint the place for generations. Maybe demigod blood has some kind of power.”  
  
“Oh...” Percy set down his third pizza slice. He leaned back and stared at nothing, as if the horse kick to his head had just now registered.  
  
“Percy?” Annabeth gripped his arm.  
  
“Oh, bad,” he muttered. “Bad. Bad.” He looked across the table at Frank and Hazel. “You guys remember Polybotes?”  
  
“The giant who invaded Camp Jupiter,” Hazel said. “The anti-Poseidon you whacked in the head with a Terminus statue. Yes, I think I remember.”  
  
“I had a dream,” Percy said, “when we were flying to Alaska. Polybotes was talking to the gorgons, and he said- he said he wanted me taken prisoner, not killed. He said: ‘I want that one chained at my feet, so I can kill him when the time is ripe. His blood shall water the stones of Mount Olympus and wake Earth Mother!’”  
  
I wondered if the room’s temperature controls were broken, because suddenly I couldn’t stop shaking. “You think the giants would use our blood... the blood of two of us-”  
  
“I don’t know,” Percy said. “But until we figure it out, I suggest we all try to avoid getting captured.”  
  
Jason grunted. “That I agree with.”  
  
“But how do we figure it out?” Hazel asked. “The Mark of Athena, the twins, Ella’s prophecy... how does it all fit together?”  
  
Annabeth pressed her hands against the edge of the table. “Piper, you told Leo to set our course for Atlanta.”  
  
“Right,” Piper said. “Bacchus told us we should seek out... what was his name?”  
  
“Phorcys,” Percy said.  
  
Annabeth looked surprised, she wasn’t used to her boyfriend having the answers. “You know him?”  
  
Percy shrugged. “I didn’t recognize the name at first. Then Bacchus mentioned salt water, and it rang a bell. Phorcys is an old sea god from before my dad’s time. Never met him, but supposedly he’s a son of Gaea. I still don’t understand what a sea god would be doing in Atlanta.”  
  
Leo snorted. “What’s a wine god doing in Kansas? Gods are weird. Anyway, we should reach Atlanta by noon tomorrow, unless something else goes wrong.”  
  
“Don’t even say that,” Annabeth muttered. “It’s getting late. We should all get some sleep.”  
  
“Wait,” Piper said.  
  
Once more, everyone looked at her.  
  
“There’s one last thing,” she said. “The eidolons - the possessing spirits. They’re still here, in this room.”  
  
Silence fell.

Finally Hazel exhaled. “Piper is right.”  
  
“How can you be sure?” Annabeth asked.  
  
“I’ve met eidolons,” Hazel said. “In the Underworld, when I was... you know.”  
  
Dead.  
  
I had forgotten that Hazel was a second-timer. In her own way, Hazel too was a ghost reborn.  
  
“So...” Frank rubbed his hand across his buzz-cut hair as if some ghosts might have invaded his scalp. “You think these things are lurking on the ship, or-”  
  
“Possibly lurking inside some of us,” Piper said. “We don’t know.”  
  
Jason clenched his fist. “If that’s true-”  
  
“We have to take steps,” Piper said. “I think I can do this.”

“Do what?” Percy asked.  
  
“Just listen, okay?” Piper took a deep breath. “Everybody listen.”  
  
Piper met their eyes, one person at a time.  
  
“Eidolons,” she said, using her charmspeak, “raise your hands.”  
  
There was tense silence.  
  
Leo laughed nervously. “Did you really think that was going to-?”  
  
His voice died. His face went slack. He raised his hand. I yelped and dropped his other hand.  
  
Jason and Percy did the same. Their eyes had turned glassy and gold. Hazel caught her breath. On Leo's other side, Frank scrambled out of his chair and put his back against the wall.  
  
“Oh, gods.” Annabeth looked at Piper imploringly. “Can you cure them?”

She looked at Leo.

“Are there more of you on this ship?” she asked.  
  
“No,” Leo said in a hollow voice. “The Earth Mother sent three. The strongest, the best. We will live again.”  
  
“Not here, you won’t,” Piper growled. “All three of you, listen carefully.”  
  
Jason and Percy turned toward her.

“You will leave those bodies,” she commanded.  
  
“No,” Percy said.  
  
Leo let out a soft hiss. “We must live.”  
  
Frank fumbled for his bow. “Mars Almighty, that’s creepy! Get out of here, spirits! Leave our friends alone!”  
  
Leo turned toward him. “You cannot command us, child of war. Your own life is fragile. Your soul could burn at any moment.”  
  
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but Frank staggered like he’d been punched in the gut. He drew an arrow, his hands shaking. “I- I’ve faced down worse things than you. If you want a fight-”  
  
“Frank, don’t.” Hazel rose.  
  
Next to her, Jason drew his sword.  
  
“Stop!” Piper ordered, but her voice quavered.  
  
“Listen to Piper.” Hazel pointed at Jason’s sword. The gold blade seemed to grow heavy in his hand. It clunked to the table and Jason sank back into his chair.  
  
Percy growled in a very un-Percy-like way. “Daughter of Pluto, you may control gems and metals. You do not control the dead.”  
  
Annabeth reached toward him as if to restrain him, but Hazel waved her off.  
  
“Listen, eidolons,” Hazel said sternly, “you do not belong here. I may not command you, but Piper does. Obey her.”  
  
She turned toward Piper, her expression clear: _Try again. You can do this._  
  
Piper looked straight at Jason - straight into the eyes of the thing that was controlling him. “You will leave those bodies,” Piper repeated, even more forcefully.  
  
Jason’s face tightened. His forehead beaded with sweat. “We- we will leave these bodies.”  
  
“You will vow on the River Styx never to return to this ship,” Piper continued, “and never to possess any member of this crew.”  
  
Leo and Percy both hissed in protest.  
  
“You will promise on the River Styx,” Piper insisted.  
  
A moment of tension passed. Then all three eidolons spoke in unison: “We promise on the River Styx.”  
  
“You are dead,” Piper said.  
  
“We are dead,” they agreed.  
  
“Now, leave.”  
  
All three boys slumped forward. Percy fell face-first into his pizza.  
  
“Percy!” Annabeth grabbed him.  
  
Piper and Hazel caught Jason’s arms as he slipped out of his chair.  
  
Leo fell straight on top of me. I put both hands on his chest, and leveled him. "Hey, sleepyhead. None of that." I knocked on his forehead softly.  
  
“It worked,” Piper said. “I don’t think they’ll be back.”  
  
Jason blinked. “Does that mean I can stop getting head injuries now?”  
  
Piper laughed. “Come on, Lightning Boy. Let’s get you some fresh air.”

"I'm going to check up on Festus." Leo stood up and looked at me. "You coming with, Sunshine?" I nodded and he held out his hand, which I took.  
  
Piper and Jason were walking back and forth along the deck. Jason was still wobbly, so Piper encouraged him to wrap his arm around her for support.  
  
Leo stood at the helm, conferring with Festus through the intercom; we knew from experience to give Jason and Piper some space. Since the satellite TV was up again, Coach Hedge was in his cabin happily catching up on his mixed martial arts cage matches. Percy’s pegasus Blackjack had flown off somewhere. The other demigods were settling in for the night.  
  
The Argo II raced east, cruising several hundred feet above the ground. Below us small towns passed by like lit-up islands in a dark sea of prairie.  
  
I remembered last winter, flying Festus the dragon over the city of Quebec. I smiled at Leo, who smiled back at me.  
  
The night was warm. The ship sailed along more smoothly than a dragon. Best of all, we were flying away from Camp Jupiter as fast as we possibly could. No matter how dangerous the ancient lands were, I couldn’t wait to get there. I hoped Jason was right that the Romans wouldn’t follow them across the Atlantic.  
  
I heard Piper and Jason talking on the other side of the ship.

"Hey, I need to go do something. I think I'll go to bed afterwards, so I'll see you tomorrow." I pecked Leo's cheek, and he nodded. "Goodnight, Millie."

"Goodnight, Blaze of Glory." I winked at him and went to the cabins.

My nerves raised as I knocked on Percy's door.

"Come in." He sounded confused. I opened the door, and he was laying in his bed, twirling Riptide around his fingers in pen-form.

"Hey, Cathy. What are you doing here?" He sat up and patted the space next to him. I sat down and faced him.

"I, uh, wanted to apologize for the way I acted toward you after the war. I held a grudge for everyone who sacrificed themselves to win, and I held it against you. I needed someone to blame, and I'm sorry." He blinked in surprise. I felt my anxiety clogging up my throat, sure he would get mad at me.

"You kidding me, Tiny? I've forgiven you a long time ago. No need to apologize." I nearly melted. He slung his arm around me in a side-hug, and smiled. He turned to me, that brotherly face on that he was so good at.

"So, what's the deal with you and Leo, huh? Wouldn't have thought him to be your type, when did it happen?" I probably blushed.

"Well, we grew close during our quest. Then, the day after we got back, we were in Bunker 9 after the campfire, and we were listening to old pop, and things just... happened."

"But that means you knew him for, like, half a week!" I jabbed him in the side softly.

"Better than meeting someone who says 'you drool in your sleep' the moment you wake up," I teased him. "Don't pretend your feelings didn't start to blossom then already."

"I thought there was an unspoken rule that the healers don't mention the things they overhear in the infirmary!" He poked my side as he said it.

"Yeah, but how often do I follow rules?"

* * * * *

"Of course," I slapped my hand against my forehead. Frank and I were checking the stables for Annabeth and Percy.

"Oh... You are in so much trouble."  
  
“What...?” Percy rubbed his eyes. “Oh, we just fell asleep.”  
  
Frank swallowed. He was dressed in running shoes, dark cargo pants, and a Vancouver Winter Olympics T-shirt with his Roman centurion badge pinned to the neck. Frank averted his eyes as if the sight of them together might burn him.  
  
“Everyone thinks you’ve been kidnapped,” he said. “We’ve been scouring the ship. When Coach Hedge finds out- oh, gods, you’ve been here all night?”

 

“Frank!” Annabeth’s ears were as red as strawberries. “We just came down here to talk. We fell asleep. Accidentally. That’s it.”  
  
“Kissed a couple of times,” Percy said.  
  
Annabeth glared at him. “Not helping!”  
  
“We’d better...” Frank pointed to the stable doors. “Uh, we’re supposed to meet for breakfast. Would you explain what you did - I mean didn’t do? I mean... I really don’t want that faun - I mean satyr - to kill me.”  
  
Frank ran.  
  
When everyone finally gathered in the mess hall, it wasn’t quite as bad as Frank had feared. Jason and Piper were mostly relieved. Leo couldn’t stop grinning and muttering, “Classic. Classic.” I kept slapping his chest for it. Only Hazel seemed scandalized, maybe because she was from the 1940s. She kept fanning her face and wouldn’t meet Percy’s eyes.  
  
Naturally, Coach Hedge went ballistic; but I found it hard to take the satyr seriously since he was barely five feet tall.  
  
“Never in my life!” Coach bellowed, waving his bat and knocking over a plate of apples. “Against the rules! Irresponsible!”  
  
“Coach,” Annabeth said, “it was an accident. We were talking, and we fell asleep.”  
  
“Besides,” Percy said, “you’re starting to sound like Terminus.”  
  
Hedge narrowed his eyes. “Is that an insult, Jackson? ’Cause I’ll- I’ll terminus you, buddy!”  
  
Percy looked like he was trying not to laugh. “It won’t happen again, Coach. I promise. Now, don’t we have other things to discuss?”  
  
Hedge fumed. “Fine! But I’m watching you, Jackson. And you, Annabeth Chase, I thought you had more sense-”  
  
Jason cleared his throat. “So grab some food, everybody. Let’s get started.”  
  
The meeting was like a war council with donuts. Then again, back at Camp Half-Blood we used to have our most serious discussions around the Ping-Pong table in the rec. room with crackers and Cheez Whiz, so I felt right at home.  
  
Percy told us about his dream - the twin giants planning a reception for them in an underground parking lot with rocket launchers; Nico di Angelo trapped in a bronze jar, slowly dying from asphyxiation with pomegranate seeds at his feet.  
  
I choked back a sob. “Nico... Oh, gods. The seeds.”  
  
“You know what they are?” Annabeth asked.  
  
I looked at Hazel, who nodded. “He showed them to me once. They’re from our stepmother’s garden.”  
  
“Your step... oh,” Percy said. “You mean Persephone.”  
  
“The seeds are a last-resort food,” Hazel said. I could tell she was nervous, because all the silverware on the table was starting to move toward her. “Only children of Hades can eat them. Nico always kept some in case he got stuck somewhere. But if he’s really imprisoned-”  
  
“The giants are trying to lure us,” Annabeth said. “They’re assuming we’ll try to rescue him.”  
  
“Well, they’re right!” I looked around the table, daring anyone to disagree. “Won’t we?”  
  
“Yes!” Coach Hedge yelled with a mouthful of napkins. “It’ll involve fighting, right?”  
  
“Hazel, Cath, of course we’ll help him,” Frank said. “But how long do we have before... uh, I mean, how long can Nico hold out?”  
  
“One seed a day,” Hazel said miserably. “That’s if he puts himself in a death trance.”  
  
“A death trance?” Annabeth scowled. “That doesn’t sound fun.”  
  
“It keeps him from consuming all his air,” Hazel said. “Like hibernation, or a coma. One seed can sustain him one day, barely.”  
  
“And he has five seeds left,” Percy said. “That’s five days, including today. The giants must have planned it that way, so we’d have to arrive by July first. Assuming Nico is hidden somewhere in Rome-”  
  
“That’s not much time,” Piper summed up. She put her hand on my shoulder, and the other on Hazel's. “We’ll find him. At least we know what the lines of the prophecy mean now. ‘Twins snuff out the angel’s breath, who holds the key to endless death.’"

"His last name." I caught on. "Di Angelo. Angelo is Italian for ‘angel.’”  
  
“Oh, gods,” Hazel muttered. “Nico...”  
  
Percy stared at his jelly donut. He had a rocky history with Nico di Angelo. The guy had once tricked him into visiting Hades’s palace, and Percy had ended up in a cell. But Nico was a good guy.

We’ll rescue him,” he promised us. “We have to. The prophecy says he holds the key to endless death.”  
  
“That’s right,” Piper said encouragingly. “Hazel, your brother went searching for the Doors of Death in the Underworld, right? He must’ve found them.”  
  
“He can tell us where the doors are,” Percy said, “and how to close them.”  
  
I took a deep breath. “Yes. Good.”  
  
“Uh...” Leo shifted in his chair. “One thing. The giants are expecting us to do this, right? So we’re walking into a trap?”  
  
Hazel looked at Leo like he’d made a rude gesture. “We have no choice!”  
  
“Don’t get me wrong, Hazel, Millie. It’s just that Nico... he knew about both camps, right?”  
  
“Well, yes,” Hazel said.  
  
“He’s been going back and forth,” Leo said, “and he didn’t tell either side.”

I took my hand out of his. "What are you trying to say?"  
  
Jason sat forward, his expression grim. “You’re wondering if we can trust the guy. So am I.”  
  
Hazel shot to her feet. “I don’t believe this. He’s my brother. He brought me back from the Underworld, and you don’t want to help him?”  
  
Frank put his hand on her shoulder. “Nobody’s saying that.” He glared at Leo. “Nobody had better be saying that.”  
  
Leo blinked. “Look, guys. All I mean is-”  
  
“Hazel,” Jason said. “Leo is raising a fair point. I remember Nico from Camp Jupiter. Now I find out he also visited Camp Half-Blood. That does strike me as... well, a little shady. Do we really know where his loyalties lie? We just have to be careful.”  
  
Hazel’s arms shook. A silver platter zoomed toward her and hit the wall to her left, splattering scrambled eggs. “You... the great Jason Grace... the praetor I looked up to. You were supposed to be so fair, such a good leader. And now you...” Hazel stomped her foot and stormed out of the mess hall.  
  
“Hazel!” Leo called after her. “Ah, jeez. I should-”  
  
“You’ve done enough,” I growled. I got up and followed her, and heard Frank calling for us, but I ignored it. I passed Hazel's cabin on my way to mine, and knocked on the half-open door. She gestured for me to come in, and I sat down on the floor next to her. She was fiddling with a little emerald.

"I just can't believe this." I could tell her voice was on the verge of cracking. I was about to have a meltdown myself.

"I know. And even when they find out he's important to the quest as well as us... Is our trust in him not enough to convince them?" Hazel huffed in agreement at my words, and we sat in silence until Annabeth joined us.

She told us about Percy, Frank and Coach Hedge going to find Phorcys. She also mentioned Hedge grounding her, which was almost enough to make me laugh. 

Annabeth was regaling us with Percy’s greatest Seaweed Brain moments to cheer us up when Frank stumbled down the hall and burst into her cabin.

“Where’s Leo?” he gasped. “Take off! Take off!”  
  
The three of us shot to our feet.  
  
“Where’s Percy?” Annabeth demanded. “And the goat?”  
  
Frank grabbed his knees, trying to breathe. His clothes were stiff and damp, like they’d been washed in pure starch. “On deck. They’re fine. We’re being followed!”  
  
Annabeth pushed past him and took the stairs three at a time, me and Hazel right behind her and Frank trailing, still gasping for air. Percy and Hedge lay on the deck, looking exhausted. Hedge was missing his shoes. He grinned at the sky, muttering, “Awesome. Awesome.” Percy was covered with nicks and scratches, like he’d jumped through a window. He didn’t say anything, but he grasped Annabeth’s hand weakly as if to say, _Be right with you, as soon as the world stops spinning._  
  
Leo, Piper, and Jason, who’d been eating in the mess hall, came rushing up the stairs.  
  
“What? What?” Leo cried, holding a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich. “Can’t a guy even take a lunch break? What’s wrong?”  
  
“Followed!” Frank yelled again.  
  
“Followed by what?” Jason asked.  
  
“I don’t know!” Frank panted. “Whales? Sea monsters? Maybe Kate and Porky!”  
  
I wanted to strangle the guy, but I wasn’t sure my tiny hands would fit around his thick neck. Annabeth took over. “That makes absolutely no sense. Leo, you’d better get us out of here.”  
  
Leo put his sandwich between his teeth, pirate style, and ran for the helm.  
  
Soon the Argo II was rising into the sky. Annabeth manned the aft crossbow. I stood next to her, an array of various arrow - ranging from poisoned to the big, jagged, spike-shooting one I'd used at Monocle Motors - in a box next to me, my bow in hand. I saw no sign of pursuit by whales or otherwise, but Percy, Frank, and Hedge didn’t start to recover until the Atlanta skyline was a hazy smudge in the distance.  
  
“Charleston,” Percy said, hobbling around the deck like an old man. He still sounded pretty shaken up. “Set course for Charleston.”  
  
“Charleston?” Jason said the name as if it brought back bad memories. “What exactly did you find in Atlanta?”  
  
Frank unzipped his backpack and starting bringing out souvenirs. “Some peach preserves. A couple of T-shirts. A snow globe. And, um, these not-really-Chinese handcuffs.”  
  
I forced myself to stay calm. “Start from the top - of the story, not the backpack.”  
  
We gathered on the quarterdeck so Leo could hear the conversation as he navigated. Percy and Frank took turns relating what had happened at the Georgia Aquarium, with Coach Hedge interjecting from time to time: “That was awesome!” or “Then I kicked her in the head!”  
  
At least the coach seemed to have forgotten about Percy and Annabeth falling asleep in the stable the night before. But judging from Percy’s story, Annabeth had worse problems to worry about than being grounded.  
  
When Percy explained about the captive sea creatures in the aquarium, I understood why he seemed so upset.  
  
“That’s terrible,” Annabeth said. “We need to help them.”  
  
“We will,” Percy promised. “In time. But I have to figure out how. I wish...” He shook his head. “Never mind. First we have to deal with this bounty on our heads.”  
  
Coach Hedge had lost interest in the conversation - probably because it was no longer about him - and wandered toward the bow of the ship, practicing his roundhouse kicks and complimenting himself on his technique.  
  
Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. “A bounty on our heads... as if we didn’t attract enough monsters already.”  
  
“Do we get WANTED posters?” Leo asked. “And do they have our bounties, like, broken down on a price list?”  
  
Hazel wrinkled her nose. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“Just curious how much I’m going for these days,” Leo said. “I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe... but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?”  
  
“Hey!” Frank complained asI walked over and punched Leo's arm - not softly as I usually did. He flinched, but I wouldn't meet his gaze.  
  
“Knock it off,” Annabeth ordered. “At least we know our next step is to go to Charleston, to find this map.”

Piper leaned against the control panel. She’d done her braid with white feathers today, which looked good with her dark brown hair.  
  
“A map,” she said. “But a map to what?”  
  
“The Mark of Athena.” Percy looked cautiously at Annabeth, like he was afraid he’d overstepped. She must have been putting out a strong _I don’t want to talk about it vibe._  
  
“Whatever that is,” he continued. “We know it leads to something important in Rome, something that might heal the rift between the Romans and Greeks.”  
  
“The giants’ bane,” Hazel added.  
  
Percy nodded. “And in my dream, the twin giants said something about a statue.”  
  
“Um...” Frank rolled his not-exactly-Chinese handcuffs between his fingers. “According to Phorcys, we’d have to be insane to try to find it. But what is it?”  
  
Everyone looked at Annabeth. I started to wonder... A statue, that something important enough to heal the rift between Greek and Roman... It couldn't be what I was thinking of. I noticed Jason looked to be deep in thought, and nervous as well - possibly thinking of the same thing I was  
  
“I—I’m close to an answer,” Annabeth said. “I’ll know more if we find this map. Jason, the way you reacted to the name Charleston... have you been there before?”  
  
Jason glanced uneasily at Piper, though I wasn’t sure why.  
  
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Reyna and I did a quest there about a year ago. We were salvaging Imperial gold weapons from the C.S.S. Hunley.”  
  
“The what?” Piper asked.  
  
“Whoa!” Leo said. “That’s the first successful military submarine. From the Civil War. I always wanted to see that.”  
  
“It was designed by Roman demigods,” Jason said. “It held a secret stash of Imperial gold torpedoes - until we rescued them and brought them back to Camp Jupiter.”  
  
Hazel crossed her arms. “So the Romans fought on the Confederate side? As a girl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say... not cool?”  
  
Jason put his hands in front of him, palms up. “I personally was not alive then. And it wasn’t all Greeks on one side and all Romans on the other. But, yes. Not cool. Sometimes demigods make bad choices.” He looked sheepishly at Hazel and me, standing next to each other in support. “Like sometimes we’re too suspicious. And we speak without thinking.”  
  
I stared at him. Slowly it dawned on me that he was apologizing.  
  
Jason elbowed Leo.  
  
“Ow!” Leo yelped. “I mean, yeah... bad choices. Like not trusting people’s brothers who, you know, might need saving. Hypothetically speaking.”  
  
Hazel pursed her lips. “Fine. Back to Charleston. Are you saying we should check that submarine again?”  
  
Jason shrugged. “Well... I can think of two places in Charleston we might search. The museum where they keep the Hunley - that’s one of them. It has a lot of relics from the Civil War. A map could be hidden in one. I know the layout. I could lead a team inside.”  
  
“I’ll go,” Leo said. “That sounds cool.”  
  
Jason nodded. He turned to Frank, who was trying to pull his fingers out of the Chinese handcuffs. “You should come too, Frank. We might need you.”  
  
Frank looked surprised. “Why? Not like I was much good at that aquarium.”  
  
“You did fine,” Percy assured him. “It took all three of us to break that glass.”  
  
“Besides, you’re a child of Mars,” Jason said. “The ghosts of defeated causes are bound to serve you. And the museum in Charleston has plenty of Confederate ghosts. We’ll need you to keep them in line.”  
  
Frank gulped.  
  
“Okay.” he relented. “Sure.” He frowned at his fingers, trying to pull them out of the trap. “Uh, how do you-?”  
  
Leo chuckled. “Man, you’ve never seen those before? There’s a simple trick to getting out.”  
  
Frank tugged again with no luck. Even Hazel was trying not to laugh.  
  
Frank grimaced with concentration. Suddenly, he disappeared. On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs.  
  
“Well done, Frank Zhang,” Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur. “That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.”  
  
Everybody busted out laughing, including me. Frank turned back to human, picked up the handcuffs, and shoved them in his backpack. He managed an embarrassed smile.  
  
“Anyway,” Frank said, clearly anxious to change the subject. “The museum is one place to search. But, uh, Jason, you said there were two?”  
  
Jason’s smile faded. Whatever he was thinking about, I could tell it wasn’t pleasant.  
  
“Yeah,” he said. “The other place is called the Battery - it’s a park right by the harbor. The last time I was there... with Reyna...” He glanced at Piper, then rushed on. “We saw something in the park. A ghost or some sort of spirit, like a Southern belle from the Civil War, glowing and floating along. We tried to approach it, but it disappeared whenever we got close. Then Reyna had this feeling - she said she should try it alone. Like maybe it would only talk to a girl. She went up to the spirit by herself, and sure enough, it spoke to her.”  
  
Everyone waited.  
  
“What did it say?” Annabeth asked.  
  
“Reyna wouldn’t tell me,” Jason admitted. “But it must have been important. She seemed... shaken up. Maybe she got a prophecy or some bad news. Reyna never acted the same around me after that.”  
  
I considered that. After our experience with the eidolons, I didn’t like the idea of approaching a ghost, especially one that changed people with bad news or prophecies.  
  
“A girls’ adventure, then,” Annabeth said. “I don't know who we might need, so we might have to risk all going, the four of us.”  
  
Piper, Hazel and I nodded, though Hazel looked nervous. No doubt her time in the Underworld had given her enough ghost experiences for two lifetimes. Piper’s eyes flashed defiantly, like anything Reyna could do, she could do.  
  
Annabeth glanced at Percy, who'd be left alone on the ship. He looked at her, seemingly telling her it was okay,  
  
“So that’s settled.” Annabeth turned to Leo, who was studying his console, listening to Festus creak and click over the intercom. “Leo, how long until we reach Charleston?”  
  
“Good question,” he muttered. “Festus just detected a large group of eagles behind us - long-range radar, still not in sight.”  
  
Piper leaned over the console. “Are you sure they’re Roman?”  
  
Leo rolled his eyes. “No, Pipes. It could be a random group of giant eagles flying in perfect formation. Of course they’re Roman! I suppose we could turn the ship around and fight-”  
  
“Which would be a very bad idea,” Jason said, “and remove any doubt that we’re enemies of Rome.”  
  
“Or I’ve got another idea,” Leo said. “If we went straight to Charleston, we could be there in a few hours. But the eagles would overtake us, and things would get complicated. Instead, we could send out a decoy to trick the eagles. We take the ship on a detour, go the long way to Charleston, and get there tomorrow morning-”  
  
Hazel started to protest, but Leo raised his hand. “I know, I know. Nico’s in trouble and we have to hurry.”  
  
“It’s June twenty-seventh,” I snapped. “After today, four more days. Then he dies.”  
  
“I know! But this might throw the Romans off our trail. We still should have enough time to reach Rome.”  
  
I scowled. “When you say should have enough...”  
  
Leo shrugged. “How do you feel about barely enough?”  
  
Hazel put her face in her hands for a count of three, then looked at me for confirmation, and I pursed my lips and nodded. “Sounds about typical for us.”  
  
“Okay, Leo. What kind of decoy are we talking about?”  
  
“I’m so glad you asked!” He punched a few buttons on the console, rotated the turntable, and repeatedly pressed the A button on his Wii controller really, really fast. He called into the intercom, “Buford? Report for duty, please.”  
  
Frank took a step back. “There’s somebody else on the ship? Who is Buford?”  
  
A puff of steam shot from the stairwell, and Leo’s automatic table climbed on deck.  
  
I hadn’t seen much of Buford during the trip. He mostly stayed in the engine room. (Leo insisted that Buford had a secret crush on the engine.) He was a three-legged table with a mahogany top. His bronze base had several drawers, spinning gears, and a set of steam vents. Buford was toting a bag like a mail sack tied to one of his legs. He clattered to the helm and made a sound like a train whistle.  
  
“This is Buford,” Leo announced.  
  
“You name your furniture?” Frank asked.  
  
Leo snorted. “Man, you just wish you had furniture this cool. Buford, are you ready for Operation End Table?”  
  
Buford spewed steam. He stepped to the railing. His mahogany top split into four pie slices, which elongated into wooden blades. The blades spun, and Buford took off.  
  
“A helicopter table,” Percy muttered. “Gotta admit, that’s cool. What’s in the bag?”  
  
“Dirty demigod laundry,” Leo said. “I hope you don’t mind, Frank.”  
  
Frank choked. “What?”  
  
“It’ll throw the eagles off our scent.”  
  
“Those were my only extra pants!”  
  
Leo shrugged. “I asked Buford to get them laundered and folded while he’s out. Hopefully he will.” He rubbed his hands and grinned. “Well! I call that a good day’s work. I’m gonna calculate our detour route now. See you all at dinner!”

 


	24. Chapter 24

**ANNABETH**

Leo docked the ship at a pier in Charleston Harbor, right next to the seawall. Along the shore was a historical district with tall mansions, palm trees, and wrought-iron fences. Antique cannons pointed at the water.  
  
By the time I came up on deck, Jason, Frank, and Leo had already left for the museum. According to Coach Hedge, they’d promised to be back by sunset. Piper, Cathy and Hazel were ready to go, but first I turned to Percy, who was leaning on the starboard rail, gazing over the bay.  
  
I took his hand. “What are you going to do while we’re gone?”  
  
“Jump into the harbor,” he said casually, like another kid might say, _I’m going to get a snack._ “I want to try communicating with the local Nereids. Maybe they can give me some advice about how to free those captives in Atlanta. Besides, I think the sea might be good for me. Being in that aquarium made me feel... unclean.”  
  
His hair was dark and tangled as usual, but I thought about the streak of gray he used to have on one side. When the two of us were fourteen, we’d taken turns (unwillingly) holding the weight of the sky. The strain left us both with some gray hair. Over the last year, while Percy had been missing, the gray streaks had finally disappeared from both of us, which made me sad and a little worried. I felt like I’d lost a symbolic bond with Percy.  
  
I kissed him. “Good luck, Seaweed Brain. Just come back to me, okay?”  
  
“I will,” he promised. “You do the same.”  
  
I tried to push down my growing unease.  
  
I turned to the others. “Okay, ladies. Let’s find the ghost of the Battery.”  
  
Afterward, I wished I’d jumped into the harbor with Percy. I even would’ve preferred a museum full of ghosts.  
  
Not that I minded hanging out with Cathy, Hazel and Piper. At first, we had a pretty good time walking along the Battery. According to the signs, the seaside park was called White Point Gardens. The ocean breeze swept away the muggy heat of the summer afternoon, and it was pleasantly cool under the shade of the palmetto trees. Lining the road were old Civil War cannons and bronze statues of historical figures, which made me shudder. I thought about the statues in New York City during the Titan War, which had come to life thanks to Daedalus’s command sequence twenty-three. I wondered how many other statues around the country were secretly automatons, waiting to be triggered.  
  
Charleston Harbor glittered in the sun. To the north and south, strips of land stretched out like arms enclosing the bay, and sitting in the mouth of the harbor, about a mile out, was an island with a stone fort. I had a vague memory of that fort being important in the Civil War, but I didn’t spend much time thinking about it.  
  
Mostly I breathed in the sea air and thought about Percy. Gods forbid I ever had to break up with him. I’d never be able to visit the sea again without remembering my broken heart. I was relieved when we turned away from the seawall and explored the inland side of the gardens.  
  
The park wasn’t crowded. I imagined that most of the locals had gone on summer vacation, or were holed up at home taking a siesta. We strolled along South Battery Street, which was lined with four-story Colonial mansions. The brick walls were blanketed with ivy. The facades had soaring white columns like Roman temples. The front gardens were bursting with rosebushes, honeysuckle, and flowering bougainvillea. It looked like Demeter had set the timer on all the plants to grow several decades ago, then forgotten to come back and check on them.  
  
“Kind of reminds me of New Rome,” Hazel said. “All the big mansions and the gardens. The columns and arches.”  
  
I nodded. I remembered reading how the American South had often compared itself to Rome back before the Civil War. In the old days their society had been all about impressive architecture, honor, and codes of chivalry. And on the evil side, it had also been about slavery. _Rome had slaves_ , some Southerners had argued, _so why shouldn’t we?_  
  
I shivered. I loved the architecture here. The houses and the gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But I wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects.  
  
I shook my head. Percy would hate me getting so philosophical. If I tried to talk to him about stuff like that, his eyes glazed over.  
  
The other girls didn’t say much.  
  
Piper kept looking around like she expected an ambush. She had said she’d seen this park in the blade of her knife, but she wouldn’t elaborate. I guessed she was afraid to. After all, the last time Piper had tried to interpret a vision from her knife, Percy and Jason had almost killed each other in Kansas.  
  
Hazel also seemed preoccupied. Maybe she was taking in our surroundings, or maybe she was worrying about her brother. In less than four days, unless they found him and freed him, Nico would be dead.

Cathy was humming softly, but her eyes were scanning every little detail, probably anticipating an attack. Hidden behind her cool gaze were worries and sadness - she was probably just as worried as Hazel was, if not more. She'd always felt very protective of the son of Hades, and I could see that the looming threat over his life had been crushing her, even if she didn't talk about it.  
  
I felt that deadline weighing on me, too. I’d always had mixed feelings about Nico di Angelo. I suspected that he’d had a crush on me ever since we rescued him and his big sister Bianca from that military academy in Maine; but I had never felt any attraction to Nico. He was too young and too moody. There was a darkness in him that made me uneasy.  
  
Still, I felt responsible for him. Back when we had met, neither of us had known about his half sister, Hazel. At the time, Bianca had been Nico’s only living family. When she had died, Nico became a homeless orphan, drifting through the world alone. I could relate to that.  
  
I was so deep in thought, I might have kept walking around the park forever, but Piper grabbed my arm.  
  
“There.” She pointed across the harbor. A hundred yards out, a shimmering white figure floated on the water. At first, I thought it might be a buoy or a small boat reflecting the sunlight, but it was definitely glowing, and it was moving more smoothly than a boat, making a straight line toward us. As it got closer, I could tell it was the figure of a woman.  
  
“The ghost,” I said.  
  
“That’s not a ghost,” Hazel said. “No kind of spirit glows that brightly.”  
  
I decided to take her word for it. I2 couldn’t imagine being Hazel, dying at such a young age and coming back from the Underworld, knowing more about the dead than the living.  
  
As if in a trance, Piper walked across the street toward the edge of the seawall, narrowly avoiding a horse-drawn carriage.  
  
“Piper!” Cathy called.  
  
“We’d better follow her,” Hazel said.  
  
By the time the three of us caught up to her, the ghostly apparition was only a few yards away.  
  
Piper glared at it like the sight offended her.  
  
“It is her,” she grumbled.  
  
I squinted at the ghost, but it blazed too brightly to make out details. Then the apparition floated up the seawall and stopped in front of us. The glow faded.  
  
I gasped. The woman was breathtakingly beautiful and strangely familiar. Her face was hard to describe. Her features seemed to shift from those of one glamorous movie star to another. Her eyes sparkled playfully - sometimes green or blue or amber. Her hair changed from long, straight blond to dark chocolatey curls.  
  
I was instantly jealous. I’d always wished I had dark hair. I felt like nobody took me seriously as a blonde. I had to work twice as hard to get recognition as a strategist, an architect, a senior counselor - anything that had to do with brains.  
  
The woman was dressed like a Southern belle, just as Jason had described. Her gown had a low-cut bodice of pink silk and a three-tiered hoop skirt with white scalloped lace. She wore tall white silk gloves, and held a feathered pink-and-white fan to her chest.  
  
Everything about her seemed calculated to make me feel inadequate: the easy grace with which she wore her dress, the perfect yet understated makeup, the way she radiated feminine charm that no man could possibly resist.  
  
I realized that my jealousy was irrational. The woman was making me feel this way. I’d had this experience before. I recognized this woman, even though her face changed by the second, becoming more and more beautiful.  
  
“Aphrodite,” Cathy and I spoke.  
  
“Venus?” Hazel asked in amazement.  
  
“Mom,” Piper said, with no enthusiasm.  
  
“Girls!” The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug.  
  
The four of us did not oblige. Hazel backed into a palmetto tree.  
  
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Aphrodite said. “War is coming. Bloodshed is inevitable. So there’s really only one thing to do.”

“Uh... and that is?” I ventured.  
  
“Why, have tea and chat, obviously. Come with me!”  
  
Aphrodite knew how to do tea.  
  
She led us to the central pavilion in the gardens - a white-pillared gazebo, where a table was set with silverware, china cups, and of course a steaming pot of tea, the fragrance shifting as easily as Aphrodite’s appearance - sometimes cinnamon, or jasmine, or mint. There were plates of scones, cookies, and muffins, fresh butter and jam - all of which, Annabeth figured, were incredibly fattening; unless, of course, you were the immortal goddess of love.  
  
Aphrodite sat - or held court, rather - in a wicker peacock chair. She poured tea and served cakes without getting a speck on her clothes, her posture always perfect, her smile dazzling.  
  
I hated her more and more the longer we sat.  
  
“Oh, my sweet girls,” the goddess said. “I do love Charleston! The weddings I’ve attended in this gazebo - they bring tears to my eyes. And the elegant balls in the days of the Old South. Ah, they were lovely. Many of these mansions still have statues of me in their gardens, though they called me Venus.”  
  
“Which are you?” I asked. “Venus or Aphrodite?”  
  
The goddess sipped her tea. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Annabeth Chase, you’ve grown into quite a beautiful young lady. You really should do something with your hair, though. And, Hazel Levesque, your clothes-”  
  
“My clothes?” Hazel looked down at her rumpled denim, not self-consciously, but baffled, as if she couldn’t imagine what was wrong with them.  
  
“Mother!” Piper said. “You’re embarrassing me.”  
  
“Well, I don’t see why,” the goddess said. “Just because you don’t appreciate my fashion tips, Piper, doesn’t mean the others won’t. I could do a quick makeover for Annabeth and Hazel, perhaps silk ball gowns like mine-”  
  
“Mother!”  
  
“Fine,” Aphrodite sighed. “To answer your question, Annabeth, I am both Aphrodite and Venus. Unlike many of my fellow Olympians, I changed hardly at all from one age to the other. In fact, I like to think I haven’t aged a bit!” Her fingers fluttered around her face appreciatively. “Love is love, after all, whether you’re Greek or Roman. This civil war won’t affect me as much as it will the others.”  
  
Wonderful, I thought. My own mother, the most levelheaded Olympian, was reduced to a raving, vicious scatterbrain in a subway station. And of all the gods who might help us, the only ones not affected by the Greek–Roman schism seemed to be Aphrodite, Nemesis, and Dionysus. Love, revenge, wine. Very helpful.  
  
Hazel nibbled a sugar cookie. “We’re not in a war yet, my lady.”  
  
“Oh, dear Hazel.” Aphrodite folded her fan. “Such optimism, yet you have heartrending days ahead of you. Of course war is coming. Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness.”  
  
She smiled at me as if she knew what I had been thinking earlier about the Old South.  
  
Hazel set down her sugar cookie. She had a few crumbs on her chin, and I liked the fact that Hazel either didn’t know or didn’t care.  
  
“What do you mean,” Hazel asked, “heartrending days?”  
  
The goddess laughed as if Hazel were a cute puppy. “Well, Annabeth could give you some idea. I once promised to make her love life interesting. And didn’t I?”  
  
My almost snapped the handle off her teacup. For years, my heart had been torn. First there was Luke Castellan, my first crush, who had seen me only as a little sister; then he’d turned evil and decided he liked me - right before he died. Next came Percy, who was infuriating but sweet, yet he had seemed to be falling for another girl named Rachel, and then he almost died, several times. Finally I had gotten Percy to myself, only to have him vanish for six months and lose his memory.

Cathy laid her hand on my arm to keep me from strangling the goddess.  
  
“Interesting,” I said, “is a mild way of putting it.”  
  
“Well, I can’t take credit for all your troubles,” the goddess said. “But I do love twists and turns in a love story. Oh, all of you are such excellent stories - I mean, girls. You do me proud!”  
  
“Mother,” Piper said, “is there a reason you’re here?”  
  
“Hmm? Oh, you mean besides the tea? I often come here. I love the view, the food, the atmosphere - you can just smell the romance and heartbreak in the air, can’t you? Centuries of it.”  
  
She pointed to a nearby mansion. “Do you see that rooftop balcony? We had a party there the night the American Civil War began. The shelling of Fort Sumter.”  
  
“That’s it,” I remembered. “The island in the harbor. That’s where the first fighting of the Civil War happened. The Confederates shelled the Union troops and took the fort.”  
  
“Oh, such a party!” Aphrodite said. “A string quartet, and all the men in their elegant new officers’ uniforms. The women’s dresses - you should’ve seen them! I danced with Ares - or was he Mars? I’m afraid I was a little giddy. And the beautiful bursts of light across the harbor, the roar of the cannons giving the men an excuse to put their arms around their frightened sweethearts!”  
  
My tea was cold. I hadn’t eaten anything, but I felt like I wanted to throw up. “You’re talking about the beginning of the bloodiest war in U.S. history. Over six hundred thousand people died - more Americans than in World War One and World War Two combined.”  
  
“And the refreshments!” Aphrodite continued. “Ah, they were divine. General Beauregard himself made an appearance. He was such a scoundrel. He was on his second wife, then, but you should have seen the way he looked at Lisbeth Cooper-”  
  
“Mother!” Piper tossed her scone to the pigeons.  
  
“Yes, sorry,” the goddess said. “To make the story short, I’m here to help you, girls. I doubt you’ll be seeing Hera much. Your little quest has hardly made her welcome in the throne room. And the other gods are rather indisposed, as you know, torn between their Roman and Greek sides. Some more than others.” Aphrodite fixed her gaze on me. “I suppose you’ve told your friends about your falling-out with your mother?”  
  
Heat rose to my cheeks. The others looked at me curiously.  
  
“Falling-out?” Hazel asked.  
  
“An argument,” I said. “It’s nothing.”  
  
“Nothing!” the goddess said. “Well, I don’t know about that. Athena was the most Greek of all goddesses. The patron of Athens, after all. When the Romans took over... oh, they adopted Athena after a fashion. She became Minerva, the goddess of crafts and cleverness. But the Romans had other war gods who were more to their taste, more reliably Roman - like Bellona-”  
  
“Reyna’s mom,” Piper muttered.  
  
“Yes, indeed,” the goddess agreed. “I had a lovely talk with Reyna a while back, right here in the park. And the Romans had Mars, of course. And later, there was Mithras - not even properly Greek or Roman, but the legionnaires were crazy about his cult. I always found him crass and terribly nouveau dieu, personally. At any rate, the Romans quite sidelined poor Athena. They took away most of her military importance. The Greeks never forgave the Romans for that insult. Neither did Athena.”  
  
My ears buzzed.  
  
“The Mark of Athena,” she said. “It leads to a statue, doesn’t it? It leads to... to the statue.”  
  
Aphrodite smiled. “You are clever, like your mother. Understand, though, your siblings, the children of Athena, have been searching for centuries. None has succeeded in recovering the statue. In the meantime, they’ve been keeping alive the Greek feud with the Romans. Every civil war... so much bloodshed and heartbreak... has been orchestrated largely by Athena’s children.”  
  
“That’s...” I wanted to say impossible, but I remembered Athena’s bitter words in Grand Central Station, the burning hatred in her eyes.  
  
“Romantic?” Aphrodite offered. “Yes, I supposed it is.”  
  
“But...” I tried to clear the fog from my brain. “The Mark of Athena, how does it work? Is it a series of clues, or a trail set by Athena-”  
  
“Hmm.” Aphrodite looked politely bored. “I couldn’t say. I don’t believe Athena created the Mark consciously. If she knew where her statue was, she’d simply tell you where to find it. No... I’d guess the Mark is more like a spiritual trail of bread crumbs. It’s a connection between the statue and the children of the goddess. The statue wants to be found, you see, but it can only be freed by the most worthy.”  
  
“And for thousands of years,” I said, “no one has managed.”  
  
“Hold on,” Piper said. “What statue are we talking about?”  
  
The goddess laughed. “Oh, I’m sure Annabeth can fill you in. At any rate, the clue you need is close by: a map of sorts, left by the children of Athena in 1861 - a remembrance that will start you on your path, once you reach Rome. But as you said, Annabeth Chase, no one has ever succeeded in following the Mark of Athena to its end. There you will face your worst fear - the fear of every child of Athena. And even if you survive, how will you use your reward? For war or for peace?”  
  
I was glad for the tablecloth, because under the table, my legs were trembling. “This map,” I said, “where is it?”  
  
“Guys!” Hazel pointed to the sky.  
  
Circling above the palmetto trees were two large eagles. Higher up, descending rapidly, was a flying chariot pulled by pegasi. Apparently Leo’s diversion with Buford the end table hadn’t worked - at least not for long.  
  
Aphrodite spread butter on a muffin as if she had all the time in the world. “Oh, the map is at Fort Sumter, of course.” She pointed her butter knife toward the island across the harbor. “It looks like the Romans have arrived to cut you off. I’d get back to your ship in a hurry if I were you. Would you care for some tea cakes to go?”  
  
We didn’t make it to the ship.  
  
Halfway across the dock, three giant eagles descended in front of us. Each deposited a Roman commando in purple and denim with glittering gold armor, sword, and shield. The eagles flew away, and the Roman in the middle, who was scrawnier than the others, raised his visor.  
  
“Surrender to Rome!” Octavian shrieked.  
  
Hazel drew her cavalry sword and grumbled, “Fat chance, Octavian.”  
  
I cursed under my breath. By himself, the skinny augur wouldn’t have bothered me, but the two other guys looked like seasoned warriors - a lot bigger and stronger than I wanted to deal with, especially since Piper and I were armed only with daggers.  
  
Piper raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Octavian, what happened at camp was a setup. We can explain.”  
  
“Can’t hear you!” Octavian yelled. “Wax in our ears - standard procedure when battling evil sirens. Now, throw down your weapons and turn around slowly so I can bind your hands.”

“Let me skewer him,” Hazel muttered. “Please.”  
  
The ship was only fifty feet away, but I saw no sign of Coach Hedge on deck. He was probably below, watching his stupid martial arts programs. Jason’s group wasn’t due back until sunset, and Percy would be underwater, unaware of the invasion. If I could get on board, I could use the ballistae; but there was no way to get around these three Romans.  
  
I was running out of time. The eagles circled overhead, crying out as if to alert their brethren: _Hey, some tasty Greek demigods over here!_  I couldn’t see the flying chariot anymore, but I assumed it was close by. I had to figure out something before more Romans arrived.  
  
I needed help... some kind of distress signal to Coach Hedge, or even better - Percy.  
  
“Well?” Octavian demanded. His two friends brandished their swords.  
  
Very slowly, using only two fingers, I drew my dagger. Instead of dropping it, I tossed it as far as I could into the water.  
  
Octavian made a squeaking sound. “What was that for? I didn’t say toss it! That could’ve been evidence. Or spoils of war!”  
  
I tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: _Oh, silly me_. Nobody who knew me would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation.  
  
“You other three...” He pointed his blade at Cathy, Hazel and Piper. “Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus-”  
  
All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding my dagger.  
  
“You dropped this,” he said, totally poker-faced.  
  
I threw my arms around him. “I love you!”  
  
“Guys,” Hazel interrupted. She had a little smile on her face. “We need to hurry.”  
  
Down in the water, Octavian yelled, “Get me out of here! I’ll kill you!”  
  
“Tempting,” Percy called down.  
  
“What?” Octavian shouted. He was holding on to one of his guards, who was having trouble keeping them both afloat.  
  
“Nothing!” Percy shouted back. “Let’s go, guys.”  
  
Hazel frowned. “We can’t let them drown, can we?”  
  
“They won’t,” Percy promised. “I’ve got the water circulating around their feet. As soon as we’re out of range, I’ll spit them ashore.”  
  
Cathy grinned. “Nice.”  
  
We climbed aboard the Argo II, and I ran to the helm. “Piper, get below. Use the sink in the galley for an Iris-message. Warn Jason to get back here!”  
  
Piper nodded and raced off.  
  
“Hazel, go find Coach Hedge and tell him to get his furry hindquarters on deck!”  
  
“Right!”  
  
“And Percy, Cathy- the three of us need to get this ship to Fort Sumter.”  
  
Percy nodded and ran to the mast. I took the helm, Cathy by my side. Our hands flew across the controls. I’d just have to hope we collectively knew enough to operate them.  
  
I had seen Percy control full-sized sailing ships before with only his willpower. This time, he didn’t disappoint. Ropes flew on their own - releasing the dock ties, weighing the anchor. The sails unfurled and caught the wind. Meanwhile Cathy fired the engine. The oars extended with a sound like machine-gun fire, and the Argo II turned from the dock, heading for the island in the distance.  
  
The three eagles still circled overhead, but they made no attempt to land on the ship, probably because Festus the figurehead blew fire whenever they got close. More eagles were flying in formation toward Fort Sumter - at least a dozen. If each of them carried a Roman demigod... that was a lot of enemies.  
  
Coach Hedge came pounding up the stairs with Hazel at his hooves.  
  
“Where are they?” he demanded. “Who do I kill?”  
  
“No killing!” I ordered. “Just defend the ship!”  
  
“But they interrupted a Chuck Norris movie!”  
  
Piper emerged from below. “Got a message through to Jason. Kind of fuzzy, but he’s already on his way. He should be- oh! There!”  
  
Soaring over the city, heading in their direction, was a giant bald eagle, unlike the golden Roman birds.  
  
“Frank!” Hazel said.  
  
Leo was holding on to the eagle’s feet, and even from the ship, I could hear him screaming and cursing.  
  
Behind them flew Jason, riding the wind.  
  
“Never seen Jason fly before,” Percy grumbled. “He looks like a blond Superman.”  
  
“This isn’t the time!” Piper scolded him. “Look, they’re in trouble!”  
  
Sure enough, the Roman flying chariot had descended from a cloud and was diving straight toward them. Jason and Frank veered out of the way, pulling up to avoid getting trampled by the pegasi. The charioteers fired their bows. Arrows whistled under Leo’s feet, which led to more screaming and cursing. Jason and Frank were forced to overshoot the Argo II and fly toward Fort Sumter.  
  
“I’ll get ’em!” yelled Coach Hedge.  
  
He spun the port ballista. Before I could yell, “Don’t be stupid!” Hedge fired. A flaming spear rocketed toward the chariot.  
  
It exploded over the heads of the pegasi and threw them into a panic. Unfortunately it also singed Frank’s wings and sent him spiraling out of control. Leo slipped from his grasp. The chariot shot toward Fort Sumter, slamming into Jason.  
  
We watched in horror as Jason - obviously dazed and in pain - lunged for Leo, caught him, then struggled to gain altitude. He only managed to slow their fall. They disappeared behind the ramparts of the fort. Frank tumbled after them. Then the chariot dropped somewhere inside and hit with a bone-shattering _CRACK_! One broken wheel spun into the air.  
  
“Coach!” Piper screamed.  
  
“What?” Hedge demanded. “That was just a warning shot!”  
  
I gunned the engines. The hull shuddered as we picked up speed. The docks of the island were only a hundred yards away now, but a dozen more eagles were soaring overhead, each carrying a Roman demigod in its claws.  
  
The Argo II’s crew would be outnumbered at least three to one.  
  
“Percy,” Annabeth said, “we’re going to come in hard. I need you to control the water so we don’t smash into the docks. Once we’re there, you’re going to have to hold off the attackers. The rest of you help him guard the ship.”  
  
“But- Jason!” Piper said.  
  
“Frank and Leo!” Hazel added.  
  
“I’ll find them,” Annabeth promised. “I’ve got to figure out where the map is. And I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can do that.”  
  
“The fort is crawling with Romans,” Percy warned. “You’ll have to fight your way through, find our friends - assuming they’re okay - find this map, and get everybody back alive. All on your own?”  
  
“Just an average day.” I kissed him. “Whatever you do, don’t let them take this ship!”  
  
The new civil war had begun.  
  
Leo had somehow escaped his fall unharmed. I saw him ducking from portico to portico, blasting fire at the giant eagles swooping down on him. Roman demigods tried to chase him, tripping over piles of cannonballs and dodging tourists, who screamed and ran in circles.  
  
Tour guides kept yelling, “It’s just a reenactment!” Though they didn’t sound sure. The Mist could only do so much to change what mortals saw.  
  
In the middle of the courtyard, a full-grown elephant - could that be Frank? - rampaged around the flagpoles, scattering Roman warriors. Jason stood about fifty yards away, sword-fighting with a stocky centurion whose lips were stained cherry red, like blood. A wannabe vampire, or maybe a Kool-Aid freak?  
  
As Annabeth watched, Jason yelled, “Sorry about this, Dakota!”  
  
He vaulted straight over the centurion’s head like an acrobat and slammed the hilt of his gladius into the back of the Roman’s head. Dakota crumpled.  
  
“Jason!” I called.  
  
He scanned the battlefield until he saw me.  
  
I pointed to where the Argo II was docked. “Get the others aboard! Retreat!”  
  
“What about you?” he called.  
  
“Don’t wait for me!”  
  
I bolted off before he could protest.  
  
I had a hard time maneuvering through the mobs of tourists. Why did so many people want to see Fort Sumter on a sweltering summer day? But I quickly realized the crowds had saved our lives. Without the chaos of all these panicked mortals, the Romans would have already surrounded their outnumbered crew.  
  
I dodged into a small room that must have been part of the garrison. I tried to steady my breathing. I imagined what it would have been like to be a Union soldier on this island in 1861. Surrounded by enemies. Dwindling food and supplies, no reinforcements coming.  
  
Some of the Union defenders had been children of Athena. They’d hidden an important map here - something they didn’t want falling into enemy hands. If I had been one of those demigods, where would I have put it?  
  
Suddenly the walls glistened. The air became warm. I wondered if I was hallucinating. I was about to run for the exit when the door slammed shut. The mortar between the stones blistered. The bubbles popped, and thousands of tiny black spiders swelled forth.  
  
I couldn’t move. My heart seemed to have stopped. The spiders blanketed the walls, crawling over one another, spreading across the floor and gradually surrounding me. It was impossible. This couldn’t be real.  
  
Terror plunged me into memories. I was seven years old again, alone in my bedroom in Richmond, Virginia. The spiders came at night. They crawled in waves from her closet and waited in the shadows. I yelled for my father, but my father was away for work. He always seemed to be away for work.  
  
My stepmother came instead.  
  
 _I don’t mind being the bad cop_ , she had once told my father, when she didn’t think I could hear.  
  
 _It’s only your imagination_ , my stepmother said about the spiders. _You’re scaring your baby brothers._  
  
 _They’re not my brothers,_  I argued, which made my stepmother’s expression harden. Her eyes were almost as scary as the spiders.  
  
 _Go to sleep now_ , my stepmother insisted. _No more screaming._  
  
The spiders came back as soon as my stepmother had left the room. I tried to hide under the covers, but it was no good. Eventually I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. I woke up in the morning, freckled with bites, cobwebs covering my eyes, mouth and nose.  
  
The bites faded before I even got dressed, so I had nothing to show my stepmother except cobwebs, which she thought was some sort of clever trick.  
  
 _No more talk of spiders_ , my stepmother said firmly. _You’re a big girl now._  
  
The second night, the spiders came again. My stepmother continued to be the bad cop. I wasn’t allowed to call her father and bother him with this nonsense. No, he would not come home early.  
  
The third night, I ran away from home.  
  
Later, at Camp Half-Blood, I learned that all children of Athena feared spiders. Long ago, Athena had taught the mortal weaver Arachne a hard lesson - cursing her for her pride by turning her into the first spider. Ever since, spiders had hated the children of Athena.

But that didn’t make my fear easier to deal with. Once, I’d almost killed Connor Stoll at camp for putting a tarantula in her bunk. Years later, I’d had a panic attack at a water park in Denver, when Percy and I were assaulted by mechanical spiders. And the past few weeks, I had dreamed of spiders almost every night - crawling over me, suffocating me, wrapping me in webs.  
  
Now, standing in the barracks at Fort Sumter, I was surrounded. The nightmares had come true.  
  
A sleepy voice murmured in my head: _Soon, my dear. You will meet the weaver soon._  
  
“Gaea?” I murmured. I feared the answer, but I asked: “Who- who is the weaver?”  
  
The spiders became excited, swarming over the walls, swirling around my feet like a glistening black whirlpool. Only the hope that it might be an illusion kept me from passing out from fear.  
  
 _I hope you survive, child,_ the woman’s voice said. _I would prefer you as my sacrifice. But we must let the weaver take her revenge..._  
  
Gaea’s voice faded. On the far wall, in the center of the spider swarm, a red symbol blazed to life: the figure of an owl like the one on the silver drachma, staring straight at me. Then, just as in my nightmares, the Mark of Athena burned across the walls, incinerating the spiders until the room was empty except for the smell of sickly sweet ashes.  
  
 _Go,_ said a new voice - my mother. _Avenge me. Follow the Mark._  
  
The blazing symbol of the owl faded. The garrison door burst open. I stood stunned in the middle of the room, unsure whether I’d seen something real, or just a vision.  
  
An explosion shook the building. I remembered that my friends were in danger. I’d stayed here much too long.  
  
I forced myself to move. Still trembling, I stumbled outside. The ocean air helped clear my mind. I gazed across the courtyard - past the panicked tourists and fighting demigods - to the edge of the battlements, where a large mortar pointed out to sea.  
  
It might have been my imagination, but the old artillery piece seemed to be glowing red. I dashed toward it. An eagle swooped at me, but I ducked and kept running. Nothing could possibly scare me as much as those spiders.  
  
Roman demigods had formed ranks and were advancing toward the Argo II, but a miniature storm had gathered over their heads. Though the day was clear all around them, thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed above the Romans. Rain and wind pushed them back, and at least half of them were knocked out.  
  
I didn’t stop to think about it.  
  
I reached the mortar and put my hand on the muzzle. On the plug that blocked the opening, the Mark of Athena began to glow - the red outline of an owl.  
  
“In the mortar,” I said. “Of course.”  
  
I pried at the plug with my fingers. No luck. Cursing, I drew her dagger. As soon as the Celestial bronze touched the plug, the plug shrank and loosened. I pulled it off and stuck my hand inside the cannon.  
  
My fingers touched something cold, smooth, and metal. I pulled out a small disk of bronze the size of a tea saucer, etched with delicate letters and illustrations. I decided to examine it later. I thrust it in her pack and turned.  
  
“Rushing off?” Reyna asked.  
  
The praetor stood ten feet away, in full battle armor, holding a golden javelin. Her two metal greyhounds growled at her side.  
  
I scanned the area. We were more or less alone. Most of the combat had moved toward the docks. Hopefully my friends had all made it on board, but they’d have to set sail immediately or risk being overrun. I had to hurry.  
  
“Reyna,” I said, “what happened at Camp Jupiter was Gaea’s fault. Eidolons, possessing spirits-”  
  
“Save your explanations,” Reyna said. “You’ll need them for the trial.”  
  
The dogs snarled and inched forward. This time, it didn’t seem to matter to them that I was telling the truth. I tried to think of an escape plan. I doubted I could take Reyna in one-on-one combat. With those metal dogs, I stood no chance at all.  
  
“If you let Gaea drive our camps apart,” I said, “the giants have already won. They’ll destroy the Romans, the Greeks, the gods, the whole mortal world.”  
  
“Don’t you think I know that?” Reyna’s voice was as hard as iron. “What choice have you left me? Octavian smells blood. He’s whipped the legion into a frenzy, and I can’t stop it. Surrender to me. I’ll bring you back to New Rome for trial. It won’t be fair. You’ll be painfully executed. But it may be enough to stop further violence. Octavian won’t be satisfied, of course, but I think I can convince the others to stand down.”  
  
“It wasn’t me!”  
  
“It doesn’t matter!” Reyna snapped. “Someone must pay for what happened. Let it be you. It’s the better option.”  
  
My skin crawled. “Better than what?”  
  
“Use that wisdom of yours,” Reyna said. “If you escape today, we won’t follow. I told you - not even a madman would cross the sea to the ancient lands. If Octavian can’t have vengeance on your ship, he’ll turn his attention to Camp Half-Blood. The legion will march on your territory. We will raze it and salt the earth.”  
  
 _Kill the Romans_ , I heard her mother urging. _They can never be your allies._  
  
I wanted to sob. Camp Half-Blood was the only real home I’d ever known, and in a bid for friendship, I had told Reyna exactly where to find it. I couldn’t leave it at the mercy of the Romans and travel halfway around the world.  
  
But our quest, and everything I’d suffered to get Percy back... if I didn’t go to the ancient lands, it would all mean nothing. Besides, the Mark of Athena didn’t have to lead to revenge.  
  
 _If I could find the route_ , my mother had said, _the way home..._  
  
 _How will you use your reward?_ Aphrodite had asked. _For war or peace?_  
  
There was an answer. The Mark of Athena could lead me there - if I survived.  
  
“I’m going,” I told Reyna. “I’m following the Mark of Athena to Rome.”  
  
The praetor shook her head. “You have no idea what awaits you.”  
  
“Yes, I do,” I said. “This grudge between our camps... I can fix it.”  
  
“Our grudge is thousands of years old. How can one person fix it?”  
  
I wished I could give a convincing answer, show Reyna a 3-D diagram or a brilliant schematic, but I couldn’t. I just knew I had to try. I remembered that lost look on my mother’s face: _I must return home._  
  
“The quest has to succeed,” I said. “You can try to stop me, in which case we’ll have to fight to the death. Or you can let me go, and I’ll try to save both our camps. If you must march on Camp Half-Blood, at least try to delay. Slow Octavian down.”  
  
Reyna’s eyes narrowed. “One daughter of a war goddess to another, I respect your boldness. But if you leave now, you doom your camp to destruction.”  
  
“Don’t underestimate Camp Half-Blood,” I warned.  
  
“You’ve never seen the legion at war,” Reyna countered.  
  
Over by the docks, a familiar voice shrieked over the wind: “Kill them! Kill them all!”  
  
Octavian had survived his swim in the harbor. He crouched behind his guards, screaming encouragement at the other Roman demigods as they struggled toward the ship, holding up their shields as if that would deflect the storm raging all around them.  
  
On the deck of the Argo II, Percy and Jason stood together, their swords crossed. I got a tingle down my spine as she realized the boys were working as one, summoning the sky and the sea to do their bidding. Water and wind churned together. Waves heaved against the ramparts and lightning flashed. Giant eagles were knocked out of the sky. Wreckage of the flying chariot burned in the water, and Coach Hedge swung a mounted crossbow, taking potshots at the Roman birds as they flew overhead. Cathy stood at their side, singing into a megaphone. I forced myself not to focus, knowing I might fall asleep if I did.  
  
“You see?” Reyna said bitterly. “The spear is thrown. Our people are at war.”  
  
“Not if I succeed,” I said.  
  
Reyna’s expression looked the same as it had at Camp Jupiter when she realized Jason had found another girl. The praetor was too alone, too bitter and betrayed to believe anything could go right for her ever again. I waited for her to attack.  
  
Instead, Reyna flicked her hand. The metal dogs backed away. “Annabeth Chase,” she said, “when we meet again, we will be enemies on the field of battle.”  
  
The praetor turned and walked across the ramparts, her greyhounds behind her.  
  
I feared it might be some sort of trick, but I had no time to wonder. I ran for the ship.  
  
The winds that battered the Romans didn’t seem to affect me.  
  
I sprinted through their lines. Octavian yelled, “Stop her!”  
  
A spear flew past my ear. The Argo II was already pulling away from the dock. Piper was at the gangplank, her hand outstretched.  
  
I leaped and grabbed Piper’s hand. The gangplank fell into the sea, and the two of us tumbled onto the deck.  
  
“Go!” I screamed. “Go, go, go!”  
  
The engines rumbled beneath me. The oars churned. Jason changed the course of the wind, and Percy called up a massive wave, which lifted the ship higher than the fort’s walls and pushed it out to sea. By the time the Argo II reached top speed, Fort Sumter was only a blot in the distance, and we were racing across the waves toward the ancient lands.


	25. Chapter 25

**LEO**

After raiding a museum full of Confederate ghosts, I didn’t think this day could get any worse. I was wrong.  
  
We hadn’t found anything in the Civil War sub or elsewhere in the museum; just a few elderly tourists, a dozing security guard, and - when we tried to inspect the artifacts - a whole battalion of glowing zombie dudes in gray uniforms.  
  
The idea that Frank should be able to control the spirits? Yeah... that pretty much failed. By the time Piper sent her Iris-message warning them about the Roman attack, we were already halfway back to the ship, having been chased through downtown Charleston by a pack of angry dead Confederates.  
  
Then - oh, boy! - I got to hitch a ride with Frank the Friendly Eagle so we could fight a bunch of Romans. Rumor must’ve gotten around that I was the one who had fired on their little city, because those Romans seemed especially anxious to kill me.  
  
But wait! There was more! Coach Hedge shot us out of the sky; Frank dropped him (that was no accident); and we crash-landed in Fort Sumter.  
  
Now, as the Argo II raced across the waves, I had to use all my skill just to keep the ship in one piece. Percy and Jason were a little too good at cooking up massive storms.  
  
At one point, Annabeth stood next to me, yelling against the roar of the wind: “Percy says he talked to a Nereid in Charleston Harbor!”  
  
“Good for him!” I yelled back.  
  
“The Nereid said we should seek help from Chiron’s brothers.”  
  
“What does that mean? The Party Ponies?” I had never met Chiron’s crazy centaur relatives, but I’d heard rumors of Nerf sword-fights, root beer–chugging contests, and Super Soakers filled with pressurized whipped cream.

“Not sure,” Annabeth said. “But I’ve got coordinates. Can you input latitude and longitude in this thing?”  
  
“I can input star charts and order you a smoothie, if you want. Of course I can do latitude and longitude!”  
  
Annabeth rattled off the numbers. I somehow managed to punch them in while holding the wheel with one hand. A red dot popped up on the bronze display screen.  
  
“That location is in the middle of the Atlantic,” I said. “Do the Party Ponies have a yacht?”  
  
Annabeth shrugged helplessly. “Just hold the ship together until we get farther from Charleston. Jason and Percy will keep up the winds!”  
  
“Happy fun time!”  
  
It seemed like forever, but finally the sea calmed and the winds died.  
  
“Valdez,” said Coach Hedge, with surprising gentleness. “Let me take the wheel. You’ve been steering for two hours.”  
  
“Two hours?”  
  
“Yeah. Give me the wheel.”  
  
“Coach?”  
  
“Yeah, kid?”  
  
“I can’t unclench my hands.”  
  
It was true. My fingers felt like they had turned to stone. My eyes burned from staring at the horizon. My knees were marshmallows. Coach Hedge managed to pry me from the wheel.  
  
I took one last look at the console, listening to Festus chatter and whir a status report. I felt like I was forgetting something. I stared at the controls, trying to think, but it was no good. My eyes could hardly focus. “Just watch for monsters,” I told the coach. “And be careful with the damaged stabilizer. And-”  
  
“I’ve got it covered,” Coach Hedge promised. “Now, go away!”  
  
I nodded wearily. I staggered across the deck toward my friends.  
  
Percy and Jason sat with their backs against the mast, their heads slumped in exhaustion. Annabeth and Piper were trying to get them to drink some water. Millie stood next to them, clenching and unclenching her fist around an empty vial - she'd used her second power-control potion to knock out half the Romans, who hadn't plugged their ears with wax, at least not well enough. I walked over and took her other hand, which she squeezed softly.  
  
Hazel and Frank stood just out of earshot, having an argument that involved lots of arm waving and head shaking.  
  
The argument stopped abruptly when Hazel saw me. Everybody gathered at the mast.  
  
Frank scowled like he was trying hard to turn into a bulldog. “No sign of pursuit,” he said.  
  
“Or land,” Hazel added. She looked a little green, though I wasn’t sure if that was from the rocking of the boat or from arguing.  
  
I scanned the horizon. Nothing but ocean in every direction. That shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d spent six months building a ship that I knew would cross the Atlantic. But until today, our embarking on a journey to the ancient lands hadn’t seemed real. I had never been outside the U.S. before - except for a quick dragon flight up to Quebec. Now we were in the middle of the open sea, completely on our own, sailing to the Mare Nostrum, where all the scary monsters and nasty giants had come from. The Romans might not follow us, but we couldn’t count on any help from Camp Half-Blood, either.  
  
I patted my waist to make sure the tool belt was still there. Unfortunately that just reminded me of Nemesis’s fortune cookie, tucked inside one of the pockets.  
  
I turned to Annabeth. “Did you find the map you wanted?”  
  
She nodded, though she looked pale. I wondered what she’d seen at Fort Sumter that could have shaken her up so badly.  
  
“I’ll have to study it,” she said, as if that was the end of the subject. “How far are we from those coordinates?”  
  
“At top rowing speed, about an hour,” I said. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”  
  
“No,” she admitted. “Percy?”  
  
Percy raised his head. His green eyes were bloodshot and droopy. “The Nereid said Chiron’s brothers were there, and they’d want to hear about that aquarium in Atlanta. I don’t know what she meant, but...” He paused, like he’d used up all his energy saying that much. “She also warned me to be careful. Keto, the goddess at the aquarium: she’s the mother of sea monsters. She might be stuck in Atlanta, but she can still send her children after us. The Nereid said we should expect an attack.”  
  
“Wonderful,” Frank muttered.  
  
Jason tried to stand, which wasn’t a good idea. Piper grabbed him to keep him from falling over, and he slid back down the mast.  
  
“Can we get the ship aloft?” he asked. “If we could fly-”  
  
“That’d be great,” I said. “Except Festus tells me the port aerial stabilizer got pulverized when the ship raked against the dock at Fort Sumter.”  
  
“We were in a hurry,” Annabeth said. “Trying to save you.”  
  
“And saving me is a very noble cause,” I agreed. “I’m just saying, it’ll take some time to fix. Until then, we’re not flying anywhere.”  
  
Percy flexed his shoulders and winced. “Fine with me. The sea is good.”  
  
“Speak for yourself.” Hazel glanced at the evening sun, which was almost to the horizon. “We need to go fast. We’ve burned another day, and Nico only has three more left.”  
  
“We can do it,” I promised. I hoped Hazel and Millie had forgiven me for not trusting Nico (hey, it had seemed like a reasonable suspicion to me), but I didn’t want to reopen that wound. “We can make it to Rome in three days - assuming, you know, nothing unexpected happens.”  
  
Frank grunted. He looked like he was still working on that bulldog transformation. “Is there any good news?”  
  
“Actually, yes,” I said. “According to Festus, our flying table, Buford, made it back safely while we were in Charleston, so those eagles didn’t get him. Unfortunately, he lost the laundry bag with your pants.”  
  
“Dang it!” Frank barked, which I figured was probably severe profanity for him.  
  
No doubt Frank would’ve cursed some more - busting out the golly gees and the gosh darns - but Percy interrupted by doubling over and groaning.  
  
“Did the world just turn upside down?” he asked.  
  
Jason pressed his hands to his head. “Yeah, and it’s spinning. Everything is yellow. Is it supposed to be yellow?”  
  
Annabeth and Piper exchanged concerned looks. Millie took her hand out of mine and slipped the empty vial from her other into her pocket to put the backs of either hands on Percy and Jason's foreheads. She pursed her lips and frowned.  
  
“Summoning that storm really sapped your strength,” she told the boys. “You’ve got to rest.”  
  
Annabeth nodded agreement. “Frank, can you help us get the guys belowdecks?”  
  
Frank glanced at me, no doubt reluctant to leave me alone with Hazel.  
  
“It’s fine, man,” I said. “Just try not to drop them on the way down the stairs.”  
  
Once the others were below, Hazel and I faced each other awkwardly. We were alone except for Coach Hedge, who was back on the quarterdeck singing the Pokémon theme song. The coach had changed the words to: Gotta Kill ’Em All, and I really didn’t want to know why.  
  
The song didn’t seem to help Hazel’s nausea.  
  
“Ugh…” She leaned over and hugged her sides. She had nice hair - frizzy and golden brown like curls of cinnamon. Her hair reminded me of a place in Houston that made excellent churros. The thought made me hungry.  
  
“Don’t lean over,” I advised. “Don’t close your eyes. It makes the queasiness worse.”  
  
“It does? Do you get seasick too?”  
  
“Not seasick. But cars make me nauseous, and...”  
  
I stopped myself. I wanted to say talking to girls that aren't Piper or Millie, but I decided to keep that to myself.  
  
“Cars?” Hazel straightened with difficulty. “You can sail a ship or fly a dragon, but cars make you sick?”  
  
“I know, right?” I shrugged. “I’m special that way. Look, keep your eyes on the horizon. That’s a fixed point. It’ll help.”  
  
Hazel took a deep breath and stared into the distance. Her eyes were lustrous gold, like the copper and bronze disks inside Festus’s mechanical head.  
  
“Any better?” I asked.  
  
“Maybe a little.” She sounded like she was just being polite. She kept her eyes on the horizon, but I got the feeling she was gauging my mood, considering what to say.  
  
“Frank didn’t drop you on purpose,” she said. “He’s not like that. He’s just a little clumsy sometimes.”  
  
“Oops,” I said, in my best Frank Zhang voice. “Dropped Leo into a squad of enemy soldiers. Dang it!”  
  
Hazel tried to suppress a smile. I figured smiling was better than throwing up.  
  
“Go easy on him,” Hazel said. “You and your fireballs make Frank nervous.”  
  
“The guy can turn into an elephant, and I make him nervous?”  
  
Hazel kept her eyes on the horizon. She didn’t look quite so queasy, despite the fact that Coach Hedge was still singing his Pokémon song at the helm.  
  
“Leo,” she said, “about what happened at the Great Salt Lake...”  
  
“I’d be willing,” I told Hazel. “I could use the fortune cookie to find your brother.”  
  
Hazel looked stunned. “What? No! I mean... I’d never ask you to do that. Not after what Nemesis said about the horrible cost. We barely know each other!”  
  
The barely know each other comment kind of hurt, though I knew it was true.  
  
“So... that’s not what you wanted to talk about?” he asked.

“No!” she said. “No, I was just thinking about the way you tricked Narcissus and those nymphs...”  
  
“Oh, right.” I glanced self-consciously at my arm. The HOT STUFF tattoo hadn’t completely faded. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”  
  
“You were amazing,” Hazel said. “I’ve been mulling it over, how much you reminded me of-”  
  
“Sammy,” I guessed. “I wish you’d tell me who he is.”  
  
“Who he was,” Hazel corrected. The evening air was warm, but she shivered. “I’ve been thinking... I might be able to show you.”  
  
“You mean like a photo?”  
  
“No. There’s a sort of flashback that happens to me. I haven’t had one in a long time, and I’ve never tried to make one happen on purpose. But I shared one with Frank once, so I thought...”

Hazel locked eyes with me. I started to feel jittery, like I’d been injected with coffee. If this flashback was something Frank had shared with Hazel... well, either I didn’t want any part of it, or I definitely wanted to try it. I wasn’t sure which.  
  
“When you say flashback...” I swallowed. “What exactly are we talking about? Is it safe?”  
  
Hazel held out her hand. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this, but I’m sure it’s important. It can’t be a coincidence we met. If this works, maybe we can finally understand how we’re connected.”  
  
I glanced back at the helm. I still had a nagging suspicion I’d forgotten something, but Coach Hedge seemed to be doing fine. The sky ahead was clear. There was no sign of trouble.  
  
Besides, a flashback sounded like a pretty brief thing. It couldn’t hurt to let the coach be in charge for a few more minutes, could it?  
  
“Okay,” I relented. “Show me.”  
  
I took Hazel’s hand, and the world dissolved.  
  
We stood in the courtyard of an old compound, like a monastery. Red brick walls were overgrown with vines. Big magnolia trees had cracked the pavement. The sun beat down, and the humidity was about two hundred percent, even stickier than in Houston. Somewhere nearby, I smelled fish frying. Overhead, the cloud cover was low and gray, striped like a tiger’s pelt.  
  
The courtyard was about the size of a basketball court. An old deflated football sat in one corner, at the base of a Virgin Mary statue.  
  
Along the sides of the buildings, windows were open. I could see flickers of movement inside, but it was eerily quiet. I saw no sign of air conditioning, which meant it must have been a thousand degrees in there.  
  
“Where are we?” I asked.  
  
“My old school,” Hazel said next to me. “St. Agnes Academy for Colored Children and Indians.”  
  
“What kind of name-?”  
  
I turned toward Hazel and yelped. She was a ghost - just a vaporous silhouette in the steamy air. I looked down and realized my own body had turned to mist too.  
  
Everything around me seemed solid and real, but I was a spirit. After having been possessed by an eidolon three days ago, I didn’t appreciate the feeling.  
  
Before I could ask questions, a bell rang inside: not a modern electronic sound, but the old-fashioned buzz of a hammer on metal.  
  
“This is a memory,” Hazel said, “so no one will see us. Look, here we come.”  
  
“We?”  
  
From every door, dozens of children spilled into the courtyard, yelling and jostling each other. They were mostly African American, with a sprinkling of Hispanic-looking kids, as young as kindergartners and as old as high schoolers. I could tell this was in the past, because all the girls wore dresses and buckled leather shoes. The boys wore white collared shirts and pants held up by suspenders. Many wore caps like horse jockeys wear. Some kids carried lunches. Many didn’t. Their clothes were clean, but worn and faded. Some had holes in the knees of their trousers, or shoes with the heels coming apart.  
  
A few of the girls began playing jump rope with an old piece of clothesline. The older guys tossed a ratty baseball back and forth. Kids with lunches sat together and ate and chatted.  
  
No one paid Ghost Hazel or Ghost Me any attention.  
  
Then Hazel - Hazel from the past - stepped into the courtyard. I recognized her with no problem, though she looked about two years younger than now. Her hair was pinned back in a bun. Her gold eyes darted around the courtyard uneasily. She wore a dark dress, unlike the other girls in their white cotton or pastel flowery prints, so she stood out like a mourner at a wedding.  
  
She gripped a canvas lunch bag and moved along the wall, as if trying hard not to be noticed.  
  
It didn’t work. A boy called out, “Witch girl!” He lumbered toward her, backing her into a corner. The boy could have been fourteen or nineteen. It was hard to tell because he was so big and tall, easily the largest guy on the playground. I figured he’d been held back a few times. He wore a dirty shirt the color of grease rags, threadbare wool trousers (in this heat, they couldn’t have been comfortable), and no shoes at all. Maybe the teachers were too terrified to insist that this kid wear shoes, or maybe he just didn’t have any.  
  
“That’s Rufus,” said Ghost Hazel with distaste.  
  
“Seriously? No way his name is Rufus,” I said.  
  
“Come on,” said Ghost Hazel. She drifted toward the confrontation. I followed. I wasn’t used to drifting, but I’d ridden a Segway once and it was kind of like that. I simply leaned in the direction I wanted to go and glided along.  
  
The big kid Rufus had flat features, as if he spent most of his time face-planting on the sidewalk. His hair was cut just as flat on top, so miniature airplanes could’ve used it for a landing strip.  
  
Rufus thrust out his hand. “Lunch.”  
  
Hazel from the past didn’t protest. She handed over her canvas bag like this was an everyday occurrence.  
  
A few older girls drifted over to watch the fun. One giggled at Rufus. “You don’t want to eat that,” she warned. “It’s probably poison.”  
  
“You’re right,” Rufus said. “Did your witch mom make this, Levesque?”  
  
“She’s not a witch,” Hazel muttered.  
  
Rufus dropped the bag and stepped on it, smashing the contents under his bare heel. “You can have it back. I want a diamond, though. I hear your momma can make those out of thin air. Gimme a diamond.”  
  
“I don’t have diamonds,” Hazel said. “Go away.”  
  
Rufus balled his fists. I had been in enough rough schools and foster homes to sense when things were about to turn ugly. I wanted to step in and help Hazel, but I was a ghost. Besides, all this had happened decades ago.  
  
Then another kid stumbled outside into the sunlight.  
  
I sucked in my breath. The boy looked exactly like me.  
  
“You see?” asked Ghost Hazel.  
  
Fake Me was the same height as Regular Me - meaning he was short. He had the same nervous energy - tapping his fingers against his trousers, brushing at his white cotton shirt, adjusting the jockey cap on his curly brown hair. (Really, I thought, short people should not wear jockey caps unless they were jockeys.) Fake Me had the same devilish smile that greeted Regular Me whenever I looked in a mirror - an expression that made teachers immediately shout, “Don’t even think about it!” and plop me in the front row.  
  
Apparently, Fake Me had just been scolded by a teacher. He was holding a dunce cap - an honest-to-goodness cardboard cone that said DUNCE. I thought those were something you only saw in cartoons.  
  
I could understand why Fake Me wasn’t wearing it. Bad enough to look like a jockey. With that cone on his head, he would’ve looked like a gnome.  
  
Some kids backed up when Fake Me burst onto the scene. Others nudged each other and ran toward him like they were expecting a show.  
  
Meanwhile, Flathead Rufus was still trying to punk Hazel out of a diamond, oblivious to Fake Me's arrival.  
  
“Come on, girl.” Rufus loomed over Hazel with his fists clenched. “Give it!”  
  
Hazel pressed herself against the wall. Suddenly the ground at her feet went snap, like a twig breaking. A perfect diamond the size of a pistachio glittered between her feet.  
  
“Ha!” Rufus barked when he saw it. He started to lean down, but Hazel yelped, “No, please!” as if she was genuinely concerned for the big goon.  
  
That’s when Fake Me strolled over.  
  
Here it comes, I thought. Fake Me is gonna bust out some Coach Hedge–style jujitsu and save the day.  
  
Instead, Fake Me put the top of the dunce cap to his mouth like a megaphone and yelled, “CUT!”  
  
He said it with such authority all the other kids momentarily froze. Even Rufus straightened and backed away in confusion.  
  
One of the little boys snickered under his breath: “Hammy Sammy.”  
  
Sammy... Leo shivered. Who the heck was this kid?  
  
Sammy/Fake Me stormed up to Rufus with his dunce cap in his hand, looking angry. “No, no, no!” he announced, waving his free hand wildly at the other kids, who were gathering to watch the entertainment.  
  
Sammy turned to Hazel. “Miss Lamarr, your line is...” Sammy looked around in exasperation. “Script! What is Hedy Lamarr’s line?”  
  
“‘No, please, you villain!’” one of the boys called out.  
  
“Thank you!” Sammy said. “Miss Lamarr, you’re supposed to say, _No, please, you villain_! And you, Clark Gable-”  
  
The whole courtyard burst into laughter. I vaguely knew Clark Gable was an old-timey actor, but I didn’t know much else. Apparently, though, the idea that Flathead Rufus could be Clark Gable was hilarious to the kids.  
  
“Mr. Gable-”  
  
“No!” one of the girls cried. “Make him Gary Cooper.”  
  
More laughter. Rufus looked as if he were about to blow a valve. He balled his fists like he wanted to hit somebody, but he couldn’t attack the entire school. He clearly hated being laughed at, but his slow little mind couldn’t quite work out what Sammy was up to.  
  
I nodded in appreciation. Sammy was like me. I had done the same kind of stuff to bullies for years.  
  
“Right!” Sammy yelled imperiously. “Mr. Cooper, you say, _Oh, but the diamond is mine, my treacherous darling!_ And then you scoop up the diamond like this!”  
  
“Sammy, no!” Hazel protested, but Sammy snatched up the stone and slipped it into his pocket in one smooth move.  
  
He wheeled on Rufus. “I want emotion! I want the ladies in the audience swooning! Ladies, did Mr. Cooper make you swoon just now?”  
  
“No,” several of them called back.  
  
“There, you see?” Sammy cried. “Now, from the top!” he yelled into his dunce cap. “Action!”  
  
Rufus was just starting to get over his confusion. He stepped toward Sammy and said, “Valdez, I’m gonna-”  
  
The bell rang. Kids swarmed the doors. Sammy pulled Hazel out of the way as the little ones - who acted like they were on Sammy’s payroll - herded Rufus along with them so he was carried inside on a tide of kindergartners.  
  
Soon Sammy and Hazel were alone except for the ghosts.  
  
Sammy scooped up Hazel’s smashed lunch, made a show of dusting off the canvas bag, and presented it to her with a deep bow, as if it were her crown. “Miss Lamarr.”  
  
Hazel from the past took her ruined lunch. She looked like she was about to cry, but I couldn’t tell if that was from relief or misery or admiration. “Sammy... Rufus is going to kill you.”  
  
“Ah, he knows better than to tangle with me.” Sammy plopped the dunce cap on top of his jockey cap. He stood up straight and stuck out his scrawny chest. The dunce cap fell off.  
  
Hazel laughed. “You are ridiculous.”  
  
“Why, thank you, Miss Lamarr.”  
  
“You’re welcome, my treacherous darling.”  
  
Sammy’s smile wavered. The air became uncomfortably charged. Hazel stared at the ground. “You shouldn’t have touched that diamond. It’s dangerous.”  
  
“Ah, come on,” Sammy said. “Not for me!”

Hazel studied him warily, like she wanted to believe it. “Bad things might happen. You shouldn’t-”  
  
“I won’t sell it,” Sammy said. “I promise! I’ll just keep it as a token of your flavor.”  
  
Hazel forced a smile. “I think you mean token of my favor.”  
  
“There you are! We should get going. It’s time for our next scene: Hedy Lamarr nearly dies of boredom in English class.”  
  
Sammy held out his elbow like a gentleman, but Hazel pushed him away playfully. “Thanks for being there, Sammy.”  
  
“Miss Lamarr, I will always be there for you!” he said brightly. The two of them raced back into the schoolhouse.  
  
I felt more like a ghost than ever. Maybe I had actually been an eidolon my whole life, because this kid I’d just seen should have been the real me. He was smarter, cooler, and funnier. He flirted so well with Hazel that he had obviously stolen her heart.  
  
No wonder Hazel had looked at me so strangely when they first met. No wonder she had said Sammy with so much feeling. But Leo wasn’t Sammy, any more than Flathead Rufus was Clark Gable.  
  
“Hazel,” I said. “I- I don’t-”  
  
The schoolyard dissolved into a different scene.  
  
Hazel and I were still ghosts, but now we stood in front of a rundown house next to a drainage ditch overgrown with weeds. A clump of banana trees drooped in the yard. Perched on the steps, an old-fashioned radio played conjunto music, and on the shaded porch, sitting in a rocking chair, a skinny old man gazed at the horizon.  
  
“Where are we?” Hazel asked. She was still only vapor, but her voice was full of alarm. “This isn’t from my life!”  
  
I felt as if my ghostly self was thickening, becoming more real. This place seemed strangely familiar.  
  
“It’s Houston,” I realized. “I know this view. That drainage ditch... This is my mom’s old neighborhood, where she grew up. Hobby Airport is over that way.”  
  
“This is your life?” Hazel said. “I don’t understand! How-?”  
  
“You’re asking me?” I demanded.  
  
Suddenly the old man murmured, “Ah, Hazel...”  
  
A shock went up Leo’s spine. The old man’s eyes were still fixed on the horizon. How did he know we were here?  
  
“I guess we ran out of time,” the old man continued dreamily. “Well...”  
  
He didn’t finish the thought.  
  
Hazel and I stayed very still. The old man made no further sign that he saw us or heard us. It dawned on me that the guy had been talking to himself. But then why had he said Hazel’s name?  
  
He had leathery skin, curly white hair, and gnarled hands, like he’d spent a lifetime working in a machine shop. He wore a pale yellow shirt, spotless and clean, with gray slacks and suspenders and polished black shoes.  
  
Despite his age, his eyes were sharp and clear. He sat with a kind of quiet dignity. He looked at peace - amused, even, like he was thinking, _Dang, I lived this long? Cool!_  
  
I was pretty sure I had never seen this man before. So why did he seem familiar? Then I realized the man was tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, but the tapping wasn’t random. He was using Morse code, just like my mother used to do with me... and the old man was tapping the same message: _I love you_.  
  
The screen door opened. A young woman came out. She wore jeans and a turquoise blouse. Her hair was cut in a short black wedge. She was pretty, but not delicate. She had well-muscled arms and calloused hands. Like the old man’s, her brown eyes glinted with amusement. In her arms was a baby, wrapped in a blue blanket.  
  
“Look, mijo,” she said to the baby. “This is your bisabuelo. Bisabuelo, you want to hold him?”  
  
When I heard her voice, I sobbed.  
  
It was his mother - younger than I remembered her, but very much alive. That meant the baby in her arms...  
  
The old man broke into a huge grin. He had perfect teeth, as white as his hair. His face crinkled with smile lines. “A boy! Mi bebito, Leo!”  
  
“Leo?” Hazel whispered. “That- that’s you? What is bisabuelo?”  
  
I couldn’t find my voice. Great-grandfather, I wanted to say.  
  
The old man took Baby Me in his arms, chuckling with appreciation and tickling the baby’s chin - and Ghost Me finally realized what I was seeing.  
  
Somehow, Hazel’s power to revisit the past had found the one event that connected both of our lives - where my time line touched Hazel’s.  
  
This old man...  
  
“Oh...” Hazel seemed to realize who he was at the same moment. Her voice became very small, on the verge of tears. “Oh, Sammy, no...”  
  
“Ah, little Leo,” said Sammy Valdez, aged well into his seventies. “You’ll have to be my stunt double, eh? That’s what they call it, I think. Tell her for me. I hoped I would be alive, but, ay, the curse won’t have it!”  
  
Hazel sobbed. “Gaea... Gaea told me that he died of a heart attack, in the 1960s. But this isn’t- this can’t be... ”  
  
Sammy Valdez kept talking to the baby, while Leo’s mother, Esperanza, looked on with a pained smile - perhaps a little worried that Leo’s bisabuelo was rambling, a little sad that he was speaking nonsense.  
  
“That lady, Doña Callida, she warned me.” Sammy shook his head sadly. “She said Hazel’s great danger would not happen in my lifetime. But I promised I would be there for her. You will have to tell her I’m sorry, Leo. Help her if you can.”  
  
“Bisabuelo,” Esperanza said, “you must be tired.”  
  
She extended her arms to take the baby, but the old man cuddled him a moment longer. Baby Me seemed perfectly fine with it.  
  
“Tell her I’m sorry I sold the diamond, eh?” Sammy said. “I broke my promise. When she disappeared in Alaska... ah, so long ago, I finally used that diamond, moved to Texas as I always dreamed. I started my machine shop. Started my family! It was a good life, but Hazel was right. The diamond came with a curse. I never saw her again.”  
  
“Oh, Sammy,” Hazel said. “No, a curse didn’t keep me away. I wanted to come back. I died!”  
  
The old man didn’t seem to hear. He smiled down at the baby, and kissed him on the head. “I give you my blessing, Leo. First male great-grandchild! I have a feeling you are special, like Hazel was. You are more than a regular baby, eh? You will carry on for me. You will see her someday. Tell her hello for me.”  
  
“Bisabuelo,” Esperanza said, a little more insistently.  
  
“Yes, yes.” Sammy chuckled. “El viejo loco rambles on. I am tired, Esperanza. You are right. But I’ll rest soon. It’s been a good life. Raise him well, nieta.”  
  
The scene faded.  
  
I was standing on the deck of the Argo II, holding Hazel’s hand. The sun had gone down, and the ship was lit only by bronze lanterns. Hazel’s eyes were puffy from crying.  
  
What we’d seen was too much. The whole ocean heaved under us, and now for the first time I felt as if we were totally adrift.  
  
“Hello, Hazel Levesque,” I said, my voice gravelly.  
  
Her chin trembled. She turned away and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, the ship lurched to one side.  
  
“Leo!” Coach Hedge yelled.  
  
Festus whirred in alarm and blew flames into the night sky. The ship’s bell rang.  
  
“Those monsters you were worried about?” Hedge shouted. “One of ’em found us!”  
  
I deserved a dunce cap.  
  
If I’d been thinking straight, I would’ve switched the ship’s detection system from radar to sonar as soon as we left Charleston Harbor. That’s what I had forgotten. I’d designed the hull to resonate every few seconds, sending waves through the Mist and alerting Festus to any nearby monsters, but it only worked in one mode at a time: water or air.  
  
I’d been so rattled by the Romans, then the storm, then Hazel, that I had completely forgotten. Now, a monster was right underneath us.  
  
The ship tilted to starboard. Hazel gripped the rigging. Hedge yelled, “Valdez, which button blows up monsters? Take the helm!”  
  
I climbed the tilting deck and managed to grab the port rail. I started clambering sideways toward the helm, but when I saw the monster surface, I forgot how to move.  
  
The thing was the length of their ship. In the moonlight, it looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail, and millipede-type legs undulating hypnotically as the monster scraped against the hull of the Argo II.  
  
Its head surfaced last - the slimy pink face of an enormous catfish with glassy dead eyes, a gaping toothless maw, and a forest of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, making the bushiest nose beard I had ever had the displeasure to behold.  
  
I remembered special Friday night dinners my mom and I used to share at a local seafood restaurant in Houston. We would eat shrimp and catfish. The idea now made me want to throw up.  
  
“Come on, Valdez!” Hedge yelled. “Take the wheel so I can get my baseball bat!”  
  
“A bat’s not going to help,” I said, but made my way toward the helm.  
  
Behind me, the rest of my friends stumbled up the stairs.  
  
Percy yelled, “What’s going- Gah! Shrimpzilla!”  
  
Frank ran to Hazel’s side. She was clutching the rigging, still dazed from her flashback, but she gestured that she was all right.  
  
The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard and almost rolled overboard.  
  
I reached the helm. My hands flew across the controls. Over the intercom, Festus clacked and clicked about leaks belowdecks, but the ship didn’t seem to be in danger of sinking - at least not yet.  
  
I toggled the oars. They could convert into spears, which should be enough to drive the creature away. Unfortunately, they were jammed. Shrimpzilla must have knocked them out of alignment, and the monster was in spitting distance, which meant that I couldn’t use the ballistae without setting the Argo II on fire as well.  
  
“How did it get so close?” Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields.  
  
“I don’t know!” Hedge snarled. He looked around for his bat, which had rolled across the quarterdeck.  
  
“I’m stupid!” I scolded myself. “Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!”  
  
The ship tilted farther to starboard. Either the monster was trying to give us a hug, or it was about to capsize us.  
  
“Sonar?” Hedge demanded. “Pan’s pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn’t been staring into Hazel’s eyes, holding hands for so long-”  
  
“What?” Frank yelped. Millie looked at me with confusion in her eyes - I knew she wasn't the jealous type, but I still felt guilty.  
  
“It wasn’t like that!” Hazel protested.  
  
“It doesn’t matter!” Piper said. “Jason, can you call some lightning?”  
  
Jason struggled to his feet. “I-” He only managed to shake his head. Summoning the storm earlier had taken too much out of him. I doubted the poor guy could pop a spark plug in the shape he was in.

“Percy!” Annabeth said. “Can you talk to that thing? Do you know what it is?”  
  
The son of the sea god shook his head, clearly mystified. “Maybe it’s just curious about the ship. Maybe-”  
  
The monster’s tendrils lashed across the deck so fast, I didn’t even have time to yell, _Look out!_  
  
One slammed Percy in the chest and sent him crashing down the steps. Another wrapped around Piper’s legs and dragged her, screaming, toward the rail. Dozens more tendrils curled around the masts, encircling the crossbows and ripping down the rigging.  
  
“Nose-hair attack!” Hedge snatched up his bat and leaped into action; but his hits just bounced harmlessly off the tendrils.  
  
Jason drew his sword. He tried to free Piper, but he was still weak. His gold blade cut through the tendrils with no problem, but faster than he could sever them, more took their place.  
  
Annabeth unsheathed her dagger. She ran through the forest of tentacles, dodging and stabbing at whatever target she could find. Frank pulled out his bow, Millie repeating the action next to him. They fired over the side at the creature’s body, lodging arrows in the chinks of its shell; but that only seemed to annoy the monster. It bellowed, and rocked the ship. The mast creaked like it might snap off.  
  
We needed more firepower, but we couldn’t use ballistae. We needed to deliver a blast that wouldn’t destroy the ship. But how...?  
  
My eyes fixed on a supply crate next to Hazel’s feet.  
  
“Hazel!” I yelled. “That box! Open it!”  
  
She hesitated, then saw the box I meant. The label read _WARNING. DO NOT OPEN_.  
  
“Open it!” I yelled again. “Coach, take the wheel! Turn us toward the monster, or we’ll capsize.”  
  
Hedge danced through the tentacles with his nimble goat hooves, smashing away with gusto. He bounded toward the helm and took the controls.  
  
“Hope you got a plan!” he shouted.  
  
“A bad one.” I raced toward the mast.  
  
The monster pushed against the Argo II. The deck lurched to forty-five degrees. Despite everyone’s efforts, the tentacles were just too numerous to fight. They seemed able to elongate as much as they wanted. Soon they’d have the Argo II completely entangled. Percy hadn’t appeared from below. The others were fighting for their lives against nose hair.  
  
“Millie!” I called as I ran toward Hazel. “Buy us some time! Sing to distract it or something! Frank, you turn into a shark or something?”  
  
Frank glanced over, scowling; and in that moment a tentacle slammed into the big guy, knocking him overboard. Millie yelped and grabbed his hand in an attempt to keep him here, but she just got dragged along.  
  
Hazel screamed. She’d opened the supply box and almost dropped the two glass vials she was holding.  
  
I caught them. Each was the size of an apple, and the liquid inside glowed poisonous green. The glass was warm to the touch. My chest felt like it might implode from guilt. I’d just distracted Frank and Millie and possibly gotten them killed, but I couldn’t think about it. I had to save the ship.  
  
“Come on!” I handed Hazel one of the vials. “We can kill the monster - and save Millie and Frank!”  
  
I hoped I wasn’t lying. Getting to the port rail was more like rock climbing than walking, but finally we made it.  
  
“What is this stuff?” Hazel gasped, cradling her glass vial.  
  
“Greek fire!”  
  
Her eyes widened. “Are you crazy? If these break, we’ll burn the whole ship!”  
  
“Its mouth!” I said. “Just chuck it down its-”  
  
Suddenly I was crushed against Hazel, and the world turned sideways. As we were lifted into the air, I realized we’d been wrapped together in a tentacle. My arms were free, but it was all I could do to keep hold of his Greek fire vial. Hazel struggled. Her arms were pinned, which meant at any moment the vial trapped between us might break... and that would be extremely bad for our health.  
  
We rose ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet above the monster. I caught a glimpse of my friends in a losing battle, yelling and slashing at the monster’s nose hairs. I saw Coach Hedge struggling to keep the ship from capsizing. The sea was dark, but in the moonlight I thought I saw a glistening object floating near the monster - maybe the unconscious body of Frank Zhang. I panicked, not seeing anything that looked like Millie anywhere.  
  
“Leo,” Hazel gasped, “I can’t- my arms-”  
  
“Hazel,” I said. “Do you trust me?”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Me neither,” I admitted. “When this thing drops us, hold your breath. Whatever you do, try to chuck your vial as far away from the ship as possible.”  
  
“Why- why would it drop us?”  
  
I stared down at the monster’s head. This would be a tough shot, but I had no choice. I raised the vial in my left hand. I pressed my right hand against the tentacle and summoned fire to my palm - a narrowly focused, white-hot burst.  
  
That got the creature’s attention. A tremble went all the way down the tentacle as its flesh blistered under my touch. The monster raised its maw, bellowing in pain, and I threw my Greek fire straight down its throat.  
  
After that, things got fuzzy. I felt the tentacle release us. We fell. I heard a muffled explosion and saw a green flash of light inside the giant pink lampshade of the monster’s body. The water hit my face like a brick wrapped in sandpaper, and I sank into darkness. I clamped my mouth shut, trying not to breathe, but I could feel himself losing consciousness.  
  
Through the sting of the salt water, I thought I saw the hazy silhouette of the ship’s hull above - a dark oval surrounded by a green fiery corona, but I couldn’t tell if the ship was actually on fire.  
  
 _Killed by a giant shrimp,_  I thought bitterly. _At least let the Argo II survive. Let my friends be okay. Let Millie get back alive._  
  
My vision began to dim. My lungs burned.  
  
Just as I was about to give up, a strange face hovered over me - a man who looked like Chiron, our trainer back at Camp Half-Blood. He had the same curly hair, shaggy beard, and intelligent eyes - a look somewhere between wild hippie and fatherly professor, except this man’s skin was the color of _a lima bean. The man silently held up a dagger. His expression was grim and reproachful, as if to say:_ Now, hold still, or I can’t kill you properly.  
  
I blacked out.


	26. Chapter 26

**LEO**

When I woke, I wondered if I was a ghost in another flashback, because I was floating weightlessly. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light.  
  
“About time.” Frank’s voice had too much reverb, like he was speaking through several layers of plastic wrap.

 

I sat up... or rather drifted upright. I was underwater, in a cave about the size of a two-car garage. Phosphorescent moss covered the ceiling, bathing the room in a blue-and-green glow. The floor was a carpet of sea urchins, which would have been uncomfortable to walk on, so I was glad I was floating. I didn’t understand how I could be breathing with no air.

  
Frank levitated nearby in meditation position. With his chubby face and his grumpy expression, he looked like a Buddha who’d achieved enlightenment and wasn’t thrilled about it.

The only exit to the cave was blocked by a massive abalone shell - its surface glistening in pearl and rose and turquoise. If this cave was a prison, at least it had an awesome door.

“Where are we?” I asked. “Where is everyone else?”

“Everyone?” Frank grumbled. “I don’t know. As far as I can tell, it’s just you, me, Cath and Hazel down here. The fish-horse guys took the girls about an hour ago, leaving me with you.”

Frank’s tone made it obvious he didn’t approve of those arrangements. He didn’t look injured, but I realized that he no longer had his bow or quiver. In a panic, I patted my waist. The tool belt was gone.

 

“They searched us,” Frank said. “Took anything that could be a weapon.”

“Who?” I demanded. “Who are these fish-horse-?”

“Fish-horse guys,” Frank clarified, which wasn’t very clear. “They must have grabbed us when we fell in the ocean and dragged us... wherever this is.”

I remembered the last thing I’d seen before I passed out - the lima-bean-colored face of the bearded man with the dagger. “The shrimp monster. The Argo II - is the ship okay?”

“I don’t know,” Frank said darkly. “The others might be in trouble or hurt, or-or worse. But I guess you care more about your ship than your friends.”

I felt like my face had just hit the water again. “What kind of stupid thing-?”

Then he realized why Frank was so angry: the flashback. Things had happened so fast with the monster attack, I had almost forgotten. Coach Hedge had made that stupid comment about me and Hazel holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. It probably hadn’t helped that I had gotten Frank knocked overboard right after that.

Suddenly I found it hard to meet Frank’s gaze.

“Look, man... I’m sorry I got us into this mess. I totally jacked things up.” I took a deep breath, which felt surprisingly normal, considering I was underwater. “Me and Hazel holding hands... it’s not what you think. I'd never do that to Millie, or you for that matter. Hazel was showing me this flashback from her past, trying to figure out my connection with Sammy.”

Frank’s angry expression started to unknot, replaced by curiosity. “Did she... did you figure it out?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, sort of. We didn’t get a chance to talk about it afterward because of Shrimpzilla, but Sammy was my great-grandfather.”

I told Frank what we’d seen. The weirdness hadn’t fully registered yet, but now, trying to explain it aloud, I could hardly believe it. Hazel had been sweet on my bisabuelo, a guy who had died when I was a baby. I hadn’t made the connection before, but I had a vague memory of older family members calling my grandfather Sam Junior. Which meant Sam Senior was Sammy, my bisabuelo. At some point, Tía Callida - Hera herself - had talked with Sammy, consoling him and giving him a glimpse into the future, which meant that Hera had been shaping my life generations before he was even born. If Hazel had stayed in the 1940s, if she’d married Sammy, I might’ve been her great-grandson.

“Oh, man,” I said when he had finished the story. “I don’t feel so good. But I swear on the Styx, that’s what we saw.”

Frank had the same expression as the monster catfish head - wide glassy eyes and an open mouth. “Hazel... Hazel liked your great-grandfather? That’s why she likes you?”

“Frank, I know this is weird. Believe me. But I don’t like Hazel - not that way. I’m not moving in on your girl; I have Millie, which is more than I'd ever expected.”

Frank nodded, looking relieved.

I hoped I wasn’t blushing. Truthfully, and I knew Millie would tease me for being so cheesy (though she secretly loved that kind of stuff), I would do anything to make sure she would always be happy. The way I felt about Hazel was more of a brotherly love.

Besides, the ship was in trouble.

_I guess you care more about your ship than your friends_ , Frank had said.

That wasn’t true, was it? My dad, Hephaestus, had admitted once that he wasn’t good with organic life forms. And, yes, I had always been more comfortable with machines than people. But I did care about my friends. Millie practically owned my heart at this point, and of course Piper and Jason... I’d known them the longest, but the others were important to me too. Even Frank. They were like family.

The problem was, it had been so long since I'd had a family, I couldn’t even remember how it felt. Sure, last winter I’d become senior counselor of Hephaestus cabin; but most of my time had been spent building the ship. I liked my cabin mates. I knew how to work with them - but did I really know them?  
  
If I had a family, it was the demigods on the Argo II - and maybe Coach Hedge, which I would never admit aloud.

I could hear Gaea's voice from the Porta-Potty sludge, telling me the others needed me like the control disk of Festus' brain. Gods, that was over half a year ago at this point. Just before the goddess of Annoying Me appeared to me, we'd been at Boreas' penthouse, where Millie told me something similar; that she'd had a gut feeling I'd be important.

I pushed my thoughts aside and forced myself to focus on the matter at hand.

“Right, so...” I looked around myself. “We need to make a plan. How are we breathing? If we’re under the ocean, shouldn’t we be crushed by the water pressure?”  
  
Frank shrugged. “Fish-horse magic, I guess. I remember the green guy touching my head with the point of a dagger. Then I could breathe.”

 

I studied the abalone door. “Can you bust us out? Turn into a hammerhead shark or something?”

Frank shook his head glumly. “My shape-shifting doesn’t work. I don’t know why. Maybe they cursed me, or maybe I’m too messed up to focus.”

“Millie and Hazel could be in trouble,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

 

I swam to the door and ran my fingers along the abalone. I couldn’t feel any kind of latch or other mechanism. Either the door could only be opened by magic or sheer force was required - neither of which was my specialty.

“I’ve already tried,” Frank said. “Even if we get out, we have no weapons.”

“Hmm...” I held up my hand. “I wonder.”

I concentrated, and fire flickered over my fingers. For a split second, I was excited, because I hadn’t expected it to work underwater. Then my plan started working a little too well. Fire raced up my arm and over my body until I was completely shrouded in a thin veil of flame. I tried to breathe, but I was inhaling pure heat.

“Leo!” Frank flailed backward like he was falling off a bar stool. Instead of racing to my aid, he hugged the wall to get as far away as possible.

 

I forced myself to stay calm. I understood what was going on. The fire itself couldn’t hurt me. I willed the flames to die and counted to five. I took a shallow breath. I had oxygen again.

Frank stopped trying to merge with the cave wall. “You’re... you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” I grumbled. “Thanks for the assist.”

“I-I’m sorry.” Frank looked so horrified and ashamed it was hard for me to stay mad at him. “I just... what happened?”

“Clever magic,” I said. “There’s a thin layer of oxygen around us, like an extra skin. Must be self-regenerating. That’s how we’re breathing and staying dry. The oxygen gave the fire fuel - except the fire also suffocated me.”

“I really don’t...” Frank gulped. “I don’t like that fire summoning you do.” He started getting cozy with the wall again.

I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help laughing. “Man, I’m not going to attack you.”

 

“Fire,” Frank repeated, like that one word explained everything.

I remembered what Hazel had said - that my fire made Frank nervous. I’d seen the discomfort in Frank’s face before, but I hadn’t taken it seriously. Frank seemed way more powerful and scary than I was.

Now it occurred to me that Frank might have had a bad experience with fire. My own mom had died in a machine shop blaze. I had been blamed for it. I’d grown up being called a freak, an arsonist, because whenever I got angry, things burned.

“Sorry I laughed,” I said, and I meant it. “My mom died in a fire. I understand being afraid of it. Did, uh... did something like that happen with you?”

Frank seemed to be weighing how much to say. “My house... my grandmother’s place. It burned down. But it’s more than that...” He stared at the sea urchins on the floor. “Annabeth said I could trust the crew. Even you.”

 

“Even me, huh?” I wondered how that had come up in conversation. “Wow, high praise.”

“My weakness...” Frank started, like the words cut his mouth. “There’s this piece of firewood-”

The abalone door rolled open.

I turned and found myself face-to-face with Lima Bean Man, who wasn’t actually a man at all. Now that I could see him clearly, the guy was by far the weirdest creature I’d ever met, and that was saying a lot.

  
From the waist up, he was more or less human - a thin, bare-chested dude with a dagger in his belt and a band of seashells strapped across his chest like a bandolier. His skin was green, his beard scraggly brown, and his longish hair was tied back in a seaweed bandana. A pair of lobster claws stuck up from his head like horns, turning and snapping at random.

I decided he didn’t look so much like Chiron. He looked more like the poster my mom used to keep in her workspace - that old Mexican bandit Pancho Villa, except with seashells and lobster horns.

From the waist down, the guy was more complicated. He had the forelegs of a blue-green horse, sort of like a centaur, but toward the back, his horse body morphed into a long fishy tail about ten feet long, with a rainbow-colored, V-shaped tail fin.

Now I understood what Frank meant about fish-horse guys.

 

"I am Bythos,” said the green man. “I will interrogate Frank Zhang.”

His voice was calm and firm, leaving no room for debate.

“Why did you capture us?” I demanded. “Where are Emily-Catherine and Hazel?”

Bythos narrowed his eyes. His expression seemed to say: _Did this tiny creature just talk to me?_ “You, Leo Valdez, will go with my brother.”

“Your brother?”

I realized that a much larger figure was looming behind Bythos, with a shadow so wide, it filled the entire cave entrance.

“Yes,” Bythos said with a dry smile. “Try not to make Aphros mad.”

 

* * * * *

Aphros looked like his brother, except he was blue instead of green and much, much bigger. He had Arnold-as-Terminator abs and arms, and a square, brutish head. A huge Conan-approved sword was strapped across his back. Even his hair was bigger - a massive globe of blue-black frizz so thick that his lobster-claw horns appeared to be drowning as they tried to swim their way to the surface.

“Is that why they named you Aphros?” I asked as we glided down the path from the cave. “Because of the Afro?”

Aphros scowled. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. At least I would never have trouble remembering which fish dude was which. “So what are you guys, exactly?”

“Ichthyocentaurs,” Aphros said, like it was a question he was tired of answering.

“Uh, icky what?”

“Fish centaurs. We are the half brothers of Chiron.”

“Oh, he’s a friend of mine!”

Aphros narrowed his eyes. “The one called Emily-Catherine told us this, but we will determine the truth. Come.”

I didn’t like the sound of determine the truth. It made me think of torture racks and red-hot pokers.

 

I followed the fish centaur through a massive forest of kelp. I could’ve darted to one side and gotten lost in the plants pretty easily, but I didn’t try. For one thing, I figured Aphros could travel much faster in the water, and the guy might be able to shut off the magic that let me move and breathe. Inside or outside the cave, I was just as much a captive.

Also, I had no clue where I was.

We drifted between rows of kelp as tall as apartment buildings. The green-and-yellow plants swayed weightlessly, like columns of helium balloons. High above, I saw a smudge of white that might have been the sun.

I guessed that meant we’d been here overnight. Was the Argo II all right? Had it sailed on without us, or were our friends still searching?

I couldn’t even be sure how deep we were. Plants could grow here - so not too deep, right? Still, I knew I couldn’t just swim for the surface. I’d heard about people who ascended too quickly and developed nitrogen bubbles in their blood. I wanted to avoid carbonated blood.

We drifted along for maybe half a mile. I was tempted to ask where Aphros was taking me, but the big sword strapped to the centaur’s back sort of discouraged conversation.

Finally the kelp forest opened up. I gasped. We were standing (swimming, whatever) at the summit of a high underwater hill. Below us stretched an entire town of Greek-style buildings on the seafloor.

The roofs were tiled with mother-of-pearl. The gardens were filled with coral and sea anemones. Hippocampi grazed in a field of seaweed. A team of Cyclopes was placing the domed roof on a new temple, using a blue whale as a crane. And swimming through the streets, hanging out in the courtyards, practicing combat with tridents and swords in the arena were dozens of mermen and mermaids - honest-to-goodness fish-people.

I had seen a lot of crazy stuff, but I had always thought merpeople were silly fictional creatures, like Smurfs or Muppets.

There was nothing silly or cute about these merpeople, though. Even from a distance, they looked fierce and not at all human. Their eyes glowed yellow. They had sharklike teeth and leathery skin in colors ranging from coral red to ink black.

“It’s a training camp,” I realized. I looked at Aphros in awe. “You train heroes, the same way Chiron does?”

Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. “We have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “Like…um, the Little Mermaid?”

Aphros frowned. “Who? No! Like Triton, Glaucus, Weissmuller, and Bill!”

“Oh.” I had no idea who any of those people were. “You trained Bill? Impressive.”

“Indeed!” Aphros pounded his chest. “I trained Bill myself. A great merman.”

“You teach combat, I guess.”

Aphros threw up his hands in exasperation. “Why does everyone assume that?”

I glanced at the massive sword on the fish-guy’s back. “Uh, I don’t know.”

“I teach music and poetry!” Aphros said. “Life skills! Homemaking! These are important for heroes.”

“Absolutely.” I tried to keep a straight face. “Sewing? Cookie baking?”

“Yes. I’m glad you understand. Perhaps later, if I don’t have to kill you, I will share my brownie recipe.” Aphros gestured behind him contemptuously. “My brother Bythos - he teaches combat.”

I wasn’t sure whether I felt relieved or insulted that the combat trainer was interrogating Frank, while I got the home economics teacher. “So, great. This is Camp... what do you call it? Camp Fish-Blood?”

Aphros frowned. “I hope that was a joke. This is Camp __________.” He made a sound that was a series of sonar pings and hisses.

“Silly me,” I said. “And, you know, I could really go for some of those brownies! So what do we have to do to get to the not killing me stage?”

“Tell me your story,” Aphros said.  
  
I hesitated, but not for long. Somehow I sensed that I should tell the truth. I started at the beginning - how Hera had been my babysitter and placed me in the flames; how my mother had died because of Gaea, who had identified me as a future enemy. I talked about how I had spent my childhood bouncing around in foster homes, until Jason and Piper and I had been taken to Camp Half-Blood, where we'd met Millie and Annabeth. I explained the Prophecy of Eight, the building of the Argo II, and our quest to reach Greece and defeat the giants before Gaea woke.  
  
As I talked, Aphros drew some wicked-looking metal spikes from his belt. I was afraid I had said something wrong, but Aphros pulled some seaweed yarn from his pouch and started knitting. “Go on,” he urged. “Don’t stop.”  
  
By the time I had explained the eidolons, the problem with the Romans, and all the troubles the Argo II had encountered crossing the United States and embarking from Charleston, Aphros had knitted a complete baby bonnet.  
  
I waited while the fish centaur put away his supplies. Aphros’s lobster-claw horns kept swimming around in his thick hair, and I had to resist the urge to try to rescue them.  
  
“Very well,” Aphros said. “I believe you.”  
  
“As simple as that?”  
  
“I am quite good at discerning lies. I hear none from you. Your story also fits with what Emily-Catherine Solace and Hazel Levesque told us.”  
  
“Are they-?”  
  
“Of course,” Aphros said. “They're fine.” He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, which sounded strange underwater - like a dolphin screaming. “My people will bring them here shortly. You must understand... our location is a carefully guarded secret. You and your friends showed up in a warship, pursued by one of Keto’s sea monsters. We did not know whose side you were on.”  
  
“Is the ship all right?”  
  
“Damaged,” Aphros said, “but not terribly. The skolopendra withdrew after it got a mouthful of fire. Nice touch.”  
  
“Thank you. Skolopendra? Never heard of it.”  
  
“Consider yourself lucky. They are nasty creatures. Keto must really hate you. At any rate, we rescued you and the other two from the creature’s tentacles as it retreated into the deep. Your friends are still above, searching for you; but we have obscured their vision. We had to be sure you were not a threat. Otherwise, we would have had to... take measures.”  
  
I gulped. I was pretty sure taking measures did not mean baking extra brownies. And if these guys were so powerful that they could keep their camp hidden from Percy, who had all those Poseidon-ish water powers, they were not fish dudes to mess with. “So... we can go?”

 

“Soon,” Aphros promised. “I must check with Bythos. When he is done talking with your friend Gank-”

  
“Frank.”

“Frank. When they are done, we will send you back to your ship. And we may have some warnings for you.”

“Warnings?”

“Ah.” Aphros pointed. Mille and Hazel emerged from the kelp forest, escorted by two vicious-looking mermaids, who were baring their fangs and hissing. I thought they might be in danger. Then I saw they were both was completely at ease, grinning and talking with their escorts, and I realized that the mermaids were laughing.

“Leo!” Millie paddled toward me as she spoke, followed by Hazel. “Isn’t this place amazing?”

We were left alone at the ridge, which must have meant Aphros really did trust us. While the centaur and the mermaids went off to fetch Frank, the girls and I floated above the hill and gazed down at the underwater camp.

Millie and Hazel told us how the mermaids had warmed up to them right away. Apparently, the merpeople always had a softness for children of Apollo with what they called 'the power of the ancient mer-sirens', which kind of scared me, but I ignored that. Aphros and Bythos had also been fascinated by Hazel's story, as they had never met a child of Pluto before. On top of that, they had heard many legends about the horse Arion, and they were amazed that Hazel had befriended him.

The girls had promised to visit again, Hazel with Arion and Millie with her ancient book of hymns - a gift from her father she'd received for her role in the Second Titan War. The mermaids had written their phone numbers in waterproof ink on their arms so that they could keep in touch. I didn’t even want to ask how mermaids got cell-phone coverage in the middle of the Atlantic.

Millie went to talk to the trainers below us for a minute while Hazel finished her part of the story.

As Hazel talked, her hair floated around her face in a cloud - like brown earth and gold dust in a miner’s pan. She looked very sure of herself and very beautiful - not at all like the shy, nervous girl in that New Orleans schoolyard with her smashed canvas lunch bag at her feet.

“We didn’t get to talk,” I said. I was reluctant to bring up the subject, but I knew this might be our only chance to be alone. “I mean about Sammy.”

Her smile faded. “I know... I just need some time to let it sink in. It’s strange to think that you and he...”

She didn’t need to finish the thought. I knew exactly how strange it was.

“I’m not sure I can explain this to Frank,” she added. “About you and me holding hands. I explained to Millie, and she took it very well. I'm amazed at how much she trusts you.”

Down in the valley, the Cyclopes work crew cheered as the temple roof was set in place.

“I talked to Frank,” I said. “I told him I wasn’t trying to... you know. Make trouble between you two.”

“Oh. Good." Her face relaxed, and I smiled for a second.

“Frank, um, seemed pretty freaked out when I summoned fire.” I explained what had happened in the cave.

Hazel looked stunned. “Oh, no. That would terrify him.”

Her hand went to her denim jacket, like she was checking for something in the inside pocket. She always wore that jacket, or some sort of overshirt, even when it was hot outside. I had assumed that she did it out of modesty, or because it was better for horseback riding, like a motorcycle jacket. Now I began to wonder.

My brain shifted into high gear. I remembered what Frank had said about his weakness... a piece of firewood. I thought about why this kid would have a fear of fire, and why Hazel would be so attuned to those feelings. I thought about some of the stories Millie would tell me at Camp Half-Blood, when it'd just be the two of us pulling all-nighters. For obvious reasons, I tended to pay extra attention to legends about fire. Now I remembered one I hadn’t thought about in months.

“There was an old legend about a hero,” I recalled. “His lifeline was tied to a stick in a fireplace, and when that piece of wood burned up...”

Hazel’s expression turned dark. I knew he’d struck on the truth.

“Frank has that problem,” I guessed. “And the piece of firewood...” I pointed at Hazel’s jacket. “He gave it to you for safekeeping?”

“Leo, please don’t... I can’t talk about it.”

My instincts as a mechanic kicked in. I started thinking about the properties of wood and the corrosiveness of salt water. “Is the firewood okay in the ocean like this? Does the layer of air around you protect it?”

“It’s fine,” Hazel said. “The wood didn’t even get wet. Besides, it’s wrapped up in several layers of cloth and plastic and-” She bit her lip in frustration. “And I’m not supposed to talk about it! Leo, the point is if Frank seems afraid of you, or uneasy, you’ve got to understand…”

I was glad he was floating, because I probably would’ve been too dizzy to stand. I imagined being in Frank’s position, living a life so fragile, it literally could burn up at any time. I imagined how much trust it would take to give his lifeline - his entire fate - to another person.

Frank had chosen Hazel, obviously. So when he had seen me - a guy who could summon fire at will - seemingly moving in on his girl...

I shuddered. No wonder Frank didn’t like me. And suddenly Frank’s ability to turn into a bunch of different animals didn’t seem so awesome - not if it came with a big catch like that.

I thought about my least favorite line in the Prophecy of Eight: _To storm or fire the world must fall_. For a long time, I’d figured that Jason or Percy stood for storm - maybe both of them together. I was the fire guy. Nobody said that, but it was pretty clear. I was one of the wild cards. If I did the wrong thing, the world could fall. No... it must fall. I wondered if Frank and his firewood had something to do with that line. I had already made some epic mistakes. It would be so easy for me to accidentally send Frank Zhang up in flames.

“There you are!” Bythos’s voice made me flinch.

Bythos and Aphros floated over with Frank and Millie between them - Frank looking pale but okay. Frank studied me and Hazel carefully, as if trying to read what we’d been talking about.

“You are free to go,” Bythos said. He opened his saddlebags and returned their confiscated supplies. I had never been so glad to fit my tool belt around his waist. Millie got her player back - a magical golden music box that didn't attract monsters, a gift from her father for our quest back when.

“Tell Percy Jackson not to worry,” Aphros said. “We have understood your story about the imprisoned sea creatures in Atlanta. Keto and Phorcys must be stopped. We will send a quest of mer-heroes to defeat them and free their captives. Perhaps Cyrus?”

“Or Bill,” Bythos offered.

“Yes! Bill would be perfect,” Aphros agreed. “At any rate, we are grateful that Percy brought this to our attention.”

“You should talk to him in person,” I suggested. “I mean, son of Poseidon, and all.”

Both fish-centaurs shook their heads solemnly. “Sometimes it is best not to interact with Poseidon’s brood,” Aphros said. “We are friendly with the sea god, of course; but the politics of undersea deities is... complicated. And we value our independence. Nevertheless, tell Percy thank you. We will do what we can to speed you safely across the Atlantic without further interference from Keto’s monsters, but be warned: in the ancient sea, the Mare Nostrum, more dangers await.”

Frank sighed. “Naturally.”

Bythos clapped the big guy on the shoulder. “You will be fine, Frank Zhang. Keep practicing those sea life transformations. The koi fish is good, but try for a Portuguese man-of-war. Remember what I showed you. It’s all in the breathing.”

Frank looked mortally embarrassed. I bit my lip, determined not to smile.

“And you, Hazel, Emily-Catherine,” Aphros said, “come visit again, and bring the horse and the book! I know you are concerned about the time you lost, spending the night in our realm. You are worried about your brother, Nico...”

Hazel gripped her cavalry sword. “Is he- do you know where he is?”

Aphros shook his head. “Not exactly. But when you get closer, you should be able to sense his presence. Never fear! You must reach Rome the day after tomorrow if you are to save him, but there is still time. And you must save him.”

“Yes,” Bythos agreed. “He will be essential for your journey. I am not sure how, but I sense it is true - as do you, I suspect.” He looked at Millie when he said that, and she nodded solemnly.

Aphros planted his hand on my shoulder. “As for you, Leo Valdez, stay close to Hazel and Frank when you reach Rome. I sense they will face... ah, mechanical difficulties that only you can overcome.”

“Mechanical difficulties?” I asked.

Aphros smiled as if that was great news. “And I have gifts for you, the brave navigator of the Argo II!”

“I like to think of myself as captain,” I said. “Or supreme commander.”  
  
“Brownies!” Aphros said proudly, shoving an old-fashioned picnic basket into my arms. It was surrounded by a bubble of air, which I hoped would keep the brownies from turning into saltwater fudge sludge. “In this basket you will also find the recipe. Not too much butter! That’s the trick. And I’ve given you a letter of introduction to Tiberinus, the god of the Tiber River. Once you reach Rome, your friend the daughter of Athena will need this.”  
  
“Annabeth...” Leo said. “Okay, but why?”  
  
Bythos laughed. “She follows the Mark of Athena, doesn’t she? Tiberinus can guide her in this quest. He’s an ancient, proud god who can be... difficult; but letters of introduction are everything to Roman spirits. This will convince Tiberinus to help her. Hopefully.”  
  
“Hopefully,” Millie repeated.  
  
Bythos produced four small pink pearls from his saddlebags. “And now, off with you, demigods! Good sailing!”  
  
He threw a pearl at each of us in turn, and four shimmering pink bubbles of energy formed around us.

 

We began to rise through the water. I just had time to think: _A hamster ball elevator?_ Then I gained speed and rocketed toward the distant glow of the sun above.


	27. Chapter 27

**PIPER**

I had a new entry in her top-ten list of Times I Felt Useless.  
  
Fighting Shrimpzilla with a dagger and a pretty voice? Not so effective. Then the monster had sunk into the deep and disappeared along with four of my friends, and I’d been powerless to help them.  
  
Afterward, Annabeth, Coach Hedge, and Buford the table rushed around repairing things so that the ship wouldn’t sink. Percy, despite being exhausted, searched the ocean for their missing friends. Jason, also exhausted, flew around the rigging like a blond Peter Pan, putting out fires from the second green explosion that had lit up the sky just above the mainmast.

As for me, all I could do was stare at my knife Katoptris, trying to locate Cathy, Leo, Hazel, and Frank. The only images that came to me were ones I didn’t want to see: three black SUVs driving north from Charleston, packed with Roman demigods, Reyna sitting at the wheel of the lead car. Giant eagles escorted them from above. Every so often, glowing purple spirits in ghostly chariots appeared out of the countryside and fell in behind them, thundering up I-95 toward New York and Camp Half-Blood.

I concentrated harder. I saw the nightmarish images I had seen before: the human-headed bull rising from the water, then the dark well-shaped room filling with black water as Jason, Percy, and I struggled to stay afloat.

I sheathed Katoptris, wondering how Helen of Troy had stayed sane during the Trojan War, if this blade had been her only source of news. Then I remembered that everyone around Helen had been slaughtered by the invading Greek army. Maybe she hadn’t stayed sane.

 

By the time the sun rose, none of us had slept. Percy had scoured the seafloor and found nothing. The Argo II was no longer in danger of sinking, though without Leo, we couldn’t do full repairs. The ship was capable of sailing, but no one suggested leaving the area - not without our missing friends.

 

Annabeth and I sent a dream vision to Camp Half-Blood, warning Chiron of what had happened with the Romans at Fort Sumter. Annabeth explained her exchange of words with Reyna. I relayed the vision from her knife about the SUVs racing north. The kindly centaur’s face seemed to age thirty years during the course of their conversation, but he assured us he would see to the defenses of the camp. Tyson, Mrs. O’Leary, and Ella had arrived safely. If necessary, Tyson could summon an army of Cyclopes to the camp’s defense, and Ella and Rachel Dare were already comparing prophecies, trying to learn more about what the future held. The job of the eight demigods aboard the Argo II, Chiron reminded them, was to finish the quest and come back safely.

After the Iris-message, all of us paced the deck in silence, staring at the water and hoping for a miracle.

When it finally came - four giant pink bubbles bursting at the surface off the starboard bow and ejecting Frank, Hazel, Cathy and Leo - I went a little crazy. I cried out with relief and dove straight into the water.

What was I thinking? I didn’t take a rope or a life vest or anything. But at the moment, I was just so happy that I paddled over to Leo and kissed him on the cheek, which kind of surprised him.

“Miss me?” Leo laughed.

I was suddenly furious. “Where were you? How are you guys alive?”

“Long story,” he said. A picnic basket bobbed to the surface next to him. “Want a brownie?”

 

* * * * *

 

Once we got on board and changed into dry clothes (poor Frank had to borrow a pair of too-small pants from Jason) the crew all gathered on the quarterdeck for a celebratory breakfast - except for Coach Hedge, who grumbled that the atmosphere was getting too cuddly for his tastes and went below to hammer out some dents in the hull. While Leo fussed over his helm controls and Cathy tried to keep him from imploding due to the stress, Hazel and Frank related the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp.

“Incredible,” Jason said. “These are really good brownies.”

“That’s your only comment?” I demanded.

He looked surprised. “What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies-”

“I know,” Frank said, his mouth full. “Try them with Esther’s peach preserves.”

“That,” Hazel said, “is incredibly disgusting.”

“Pass me the jar, man,” Jason said.

Hazel and I exchanged a look of total exasperation. _Boys_.

Percy, for his part, wanted to hear every detail about the aquatic camp. He kept coming back to one point: “They didn’t want to meet me?”

 

“It wasn’t that,” Hazel said. “Just... undersea politics, I guess. The merpeople are territorial. The good news is they’re taking care of that aquarium in Atlanta. And they’ll help protect the Argo II as we cross the Atlantic.”

Percy nodded absently. “But they didn’t want to meet me?”

Annabeth swatted his arm. “Come on, Seaweed Brain! We’ve got other things to worry about.”

“She’s right,” Cathy said, turning to us. “After today, Nico has less than two days. The fish-centaurs said we have to rescue him. He’s essential to the quest somehow.”

She looked around defensively, as if waiting for someone to argue. No one did. I tried to imagine what Nico di Angelo was feeling, stuck in a jar with only two pomegranate seeds left to sustain him, and no idea whether he would be rescued. It made me anxious to reach Rome, even though I had a horrible feeling I was sailing toward her own sort of prison - a dark room filled with water.

“Nico must have information about the Doors of Death,” I said. “We’ll save him, Cathy, Hazel. We can make it in time. Right, Leo?”

“What?” Leo tore his eyes away from the controls. “Oh, yeah. We should reach the Mediterranean tomorrow morning. Then spend the rest of that day sailing to Rome, or flying, if I can get the stabilizer fixed by then...”

Jason suddenly looked as though his brownie with peach preserves didn’t taste so good. “Which will put us in Rome on the last possible day for Nico. Twenty-four hours to find him - at most.”

 

Percy crossed his legs. “And that’s only part of the problem. There’s the Mark of Athena, too.”

Annabeth didn’t seem happy with the change of topic. She rested her hand on her backpack, which, since they’d left Charleston, she always seemed to have with her.

She opened the bag and brought out a thin bronze disk the diameter of a donut. “This is the map that I found at Fort Sumter. It’s...”

She stopped abruptly, staring at the smooth bronze surface. “It’s blank!”

Percy took it and examined both sides. “It wasn’t like this earlier?”

“No! I was looking at it in my cabin and...” Annabeth muttered under her breath. “It must be like the Mark of Athena. I can only see it when I’m alone. It won’t show itself to other demigods.”

Frank scooted back like the disk might explode. He had an orange-juice mustache and a brownie-crumb beard that made me want to hand him a napkin.

“What did it have on it?” Frank asked nervously. “And what is the Mark of Athena? I still don’t get it.”

Annabeth took the disk from Percy. She turned it in the sunlight, but it remained blank. “The map was hard to read, but it showed a spot on the Tiber River in Rome. I think that’s where my quest starts... the path I’ve got to take to follow the Mark.”

“Maybe that’s where you meet the river god Tiberinus,” Piper said. “But what is the Mark?”

“The coin,” Annabeth murmured.

Percy frowned. “What coin?”

Annabeth dug into her pocket and brought out a silver drachma. “I’ve been carrying this ever since I saw my mom at Grand Central. It’s an Athenian coin.”

She passed it around. While each demigod looked at it, I had a ridiculous memory of show-and-tell in elementary school.

“An owl,” Leo noted. “Well, that makes sense. I guess the branch is an olive branch? But what’s this inscription, ΑΘΕ - Area Of Effect?”

“It’s alpha, theta, epsilon,” Annabeth said. “In Greek it stands for Of The Athenians... or you could read it as the children of Athena. It’s sort of the Athenian motto.”

“Like SPQR for the Romans,” Piper guessed.

Annabeth nodded. “Anyway, the Mark of Athena is an owl, just like that one. It appears in fiery red. I’ve seen it in my dreams. Then twice at Fort Sumter.”

She described what had happened at the fort - the voice of Gaea, the spiders in the garrison, the Mark burning them away. I could tell it wasn’t easy for her to talk about.

Percy took Annabeth’s hand. “I should have been there for you.”

“But that’s the point,” Annabeth said. “No one can be there for me. When I get to Rome, I’ll have to strike out on my own. Otherwise, the Mark won’t appear. I’ll have to follow it to... to the source.”

Frank took the coin from Leo. He stared at the owl. “The giants’ bane stands gold and pale, Won with pain from a woven jail.” He looked up at Annabeth. “What is it... this thing at the source?”

Before Annabeth could answer, Jason spoke up.

“A statue,” he said. “A statue of Athena. At least... that’s my guess.”

I frowned. “You said you didn’t know.”

“I don’t. But the more I think about it... there’s only one artifact that could fit the legend.” He turned to Annabeth. “I’m sorry. I should have told you everything I’ve heard, much earlier. But honestly, I was scared. If this legend is true-”

“I know,” Annabeth said. “I figured it out, Jason. I don’t blame you. But if we manage to save the statue, Greek and Romans together…Don’t you see? It could heal the rift.”

 

“Hold on.” Percy made a time-out gesture. “What statue?”

Annabeth took back the silver coin and slipped it into her pocket. “The Athena Parthenos,” she said. “The most famous Greek statue of all time. It was forty feet tall, covered in ivory and gold. It stood in the middle of the Parthenon in Athens.”

The ship went silent, except for the waves lapping against the hull.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Leo said at last. “What happened to it?”

“It disappeared,” Annabeth said.

Leo frowned. “How does a forty-foot-tall statue in the middle of the Parthenon just disappear?”

“That’s a good question,” Annabeth said. “It’s one of the biggest mysteries in history. Some people thought the statue was melted down for its gold, or destroyed by invaders. Athens was sacked a number of times. Some thought the statue was carried off-”

  
“By Romans,” Jason finished. “At least, that’s one theory, and it fits the legend I heard at Camp Jupiter. To break the Greeks’ spirit, the Romans carted off the Athena Parthenos when they took over the city of Athens. They hid it in an underground shrine in Rome. The Roman demigods swore it would never see the light of day. They literally stole Athena, so she could no longer be the symbol of Greek military power. She became Minerva, a much tamer goddess.”

“And the children of Athena have been searching for the statue ever since,” Annabeth said. “Most don’t know about the legend, but in each generation, a few are chosen by the goddess. They’re given a coin like mine. They follow the Mark of Athena... a kind of magical trail that links them to the statue... hoping to find the resting place of the Athena Parthenos and get the statue back.”

 

I watched the two of them - Annabeth and Jason - with quiet amazement. They spoke like a team, without any hostility or blame. The two of them had never really trusted each other. Piper was close enough to both of them to know that. But now... if they could discuss such a huge problem so calmly - the ultimate source of Greek/Roman hatred - maybe there was hope for the two camps, after all.

Percy seemed be having similar thoughts, judging from his surprised expression. “So if we- I mean you - find the statue... what would we do with it? Could we even move it?”

 

“I’m not sure,” Annabeth admitted. “But if we could save it somehow, it could unite the two camps. It could heal my mother of this hatred she’s got, tearing her two aspects apart. And maybe... maybe the statue has some sort of power that could help us against the giants.”

I stared at Annabeth with awe, just starting to appreciate the huge responsibility my friend had taken on. And Annabeth meant to do it alone.

“This could change everything,” Cathy said. “It could end thousands of years of hostility. It might be the key to defeating Gaea. But if we can’t help you...”

She didn’t finish, but the question seemed to hang in the air: _Was saving the statue even possible?_

Annabeth squared her shoulders. I knew she must be terrified inside, but she did a good job hiding it.

“I have to succeed,” Annabeth said simply. “The risk is worth it.”

 

Hazel twirled her hair pensively. “I don’t like the idea of you risking your life alone, but you’re right. We saw what recovering the golden eagle standard did for the Roman legion. If this statue is the most powerful symbol of Athena ever created-”

“It could kick some serious booty,” Leo offered.

Hazel frowned. “That wasn’t the way I’d put it, but yes.”

“Except...” Percy took Annabeth’s hand again. “No child of Athena has ever found it. Annabeth, what’s down there? What’s guarding it? If it’s got to do with spiders-?”

“Won through pain from a woven jail,” Frank recalled. “Woven, like webs?”

Annabeth’s face turned as white as printer paper. I suspected that Annabeth knew what awaited her... or at least that she had a very good idea. She was trying to hold down a wave of panic and terror.

 

“We’ll deal with that when we get to Rome,” I suggested, putting a little charmspeak in her voice to soothe my friend’s nerves. “It’s going to work out. Annabeth is going to kick some serious booty, too. You’ll see.”

“Yeah,” Percy said. “I learned a long time ago: Never bet against Annabeth.”

Annabeth looked at us both gratefully.

Judging from their half-eaten breakfasts, the others still felt uneasy; but Leo managed to shake them out of it. He pushed a button, and a loud blast of steam exploded from Festus’s mouth, making everyone jump.

“Well!” he said. “Good pep rally, but there’s still a ton of things to fix on this ship before we get to the Mediterranean. Please report to Supreme Commander Leo for your super-fun list of chores!”

Jason and I took charge of cleaning the lower deck, which had been thrown into chaos during the monster attack. Reorganizing sickbay and battening down the storage area took them most of the day, but I didn’t mind. For one thing, I got to spend time with Jason. For another, last night’s explosions had given me a healthy respect for Greek fire. I didn’t want any loose vials of that stuff rolling through the corridors in the middle of the night.

As we were fixing up the stables, I thought about the night Annabeth and Percy had spent down here accidentally. I wished that I could talk with Jason all night - just curl up on the stable floor and enjoy being with him. Why didn’t we get to break the rules?

But Jason wasn’t like that. He was hardwired to be a leader and set a good example. Breaking the rules didn’t come naturally to him.

 

No doubt Reyna admired that about him. I did too... mostly.

The one time I’d convinced him to be a rebel was back at the Wilderness School, when we had sneaked onto the roof at night to watch a meteor shower. That’s where we’d had their first kiss.

Unfortunately, that memory was a trick of the Mist, a magical lie implanted in her head by Hera. Jason and I were together now, in real life, but our relationship had been founded on an illusion. If I tried to get the real Jason to sneak out at night, would he do it?

I swept the hay into piles. Jason fixed a broken door on one of the stables. The glass floor hatch glowed from the ocean below - a green expanse of light and shadow that seemed to go down forever. I kept glancing over, afraid I’d see a monster’s face peeping in, or the water cannibals from my grandfather’s old stories; but all I saw was an occasional school of herring.

As I watched Jason work, I admired how easily he did each task, whether it was fixing a door or oiling saddles. It wasn’t just his strong arms and his skillful hands, though I liked those just fine, but the way he acted so upbeat and confident. He did what needed to be done without complaint. He kept his sense of humor, despite the fact that the guy had to be dead on his feet after not having slept the night before. I couldn’t blame Reyna for having a crush on him. When it came to work and duty, Jason was Roman to the core.

 

I thought about my mother’s tea party in Charleston. I wondered what the goddess had told Reyna a year ago, and why it had changed the way Reyna treated Jason. Had Aphrodite encouraged or discouraged her to like Jason?

I wasn’t sure, but I wished my mom hadn’t appeared in Charleston. Regular mothers were embarrassing enough. Godly glamour moms who invited your friends over for tea and guy talk - that was just mortifying.

Aphrodite had paid so much attention to Annabeth and Hazel, it had made me uneasy. When my mom got interested in somebody’s love life, usually that was a bad sign. It meant trouble was coming. Or as Aphrodite would say, twists and turns.

But also, I was secretly hurt not to have my mother to herself. Aphrodite had barely looked at me. She hadn’t said a word about Jason. She hadn’t bothered explaining her conversation with Reyna at all.

It was almost as if Aphrodite no longer found me interesting. I had gotten my guy. Now it was up to me to make things work, and Aphrodite had moved on to newer gossip as easily as she might toss out an old copy of a tabloid magazine.

_All of you are such excellent stories_ , Aphrodite had said. _I mean, girls._

I hadn’t appreciated that, but part of me had thought: _Fine. I don’t want to be a story. I want a nice steady life with a nice steady boyfriend._

If only I knew more about making relationships work. I was supposed to be an expert, being the head counselor for Aphrodite cabin. Other campers at Camp Half-Blood came to me for advice all the time. I had tried to do my best, but with my own boyfriend, I was clueless. I was constantly second-guessing myself, reading too much into Jason’s expressions, his moods, his offhand comments. Why did it have to be so hard? Why couldn’t there be a happily-ever-after ride-into-the-sunset feeling all the time?

“What are you thinking?” Jason asked.

I realized I’d been making a sour face. In the reflection of the glass bay doors, I looked like I’d swallowed a teaspoon of salt.

“Nothing,” I said. “I mean... a lot of things. Kind of all at once.”

Jason laughed. The scar on his lip almost disappeared when he smiled. Considering all the stuff he’d been through, it was amazing that he could be in such a good mood.

“It’s going to work out,” he promised. “You said so yourself.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Except I was just saying that to make Annabeth feel better.”

Jason shrugged. “Still, it’s true. We’re almost to the ancient lands. We’ve left the Romans behind.”

“And now they’re on their way to Camp Half-Blood to attack our friends.”

Jason hesitated, as if it was hard for him to put a positive spin on that. “Chiron will find a way to stall them. The Romans might take weeks to actually find the camp and plan their attack. Besides, Reyna will do what she can to slow things down. She’s still on our side. I know she is.”

“You trust her.” My voice sounded hollow, even to myself.

“Look, Pipes. I told you, you’ve got nothing to be jealous about.”

“She’s beautiful. She’s powerful. She’s so... Roman.”

Jason put down his hammer. He took my hand, which sent a tingle up my arm. My dad had once taken me to the Aquarium of the Pacific and shown me an electric eel. He told me that the eel sent out pulses that shocked and paralyzed its prey. Every time Jason looked at her or touched her hand, I felt like that.

“You’re beautiful and powerful,” he said. “And I don’t want you to be Roman. I want you to be Piper. Besides, we’re a team, you and me.”

I wanted to believe him. We’d been together, really, for months now. Still, I couldn’t get rid of my doubts, any more than Jason could get rid of the SPQR tattoo burned on his forearm.

 

Above us, the ship’s bell rang for dinner.

Jason smirked. “We’d better get up there. We don’t want Coach Hedge tying bells around our necks.”

I shuddered. Coach Hedge had threatened to do that after the Percy/Annabeth scandal, so he’d know if anyone sneaked out at night.

“Yeah,” I said regretfully, looking at the glass doors below their feet. “I guess we need dinner... and a good night’s sleep.”

 

* * * * *

 

The next morning I woke to a different ship’s horn - a blast so loud it literally shook me out of bed.

I wondered if Leo was pulling another joke. Then the horn boomed again. It sounded like it was coming from several hundred yards away - from another vessel.

 

I rushed to get dressed. By the time I got up on deck, the others had already gathered - all hastily dressed except for Coach Hedge, who had pulled the night watch.

Frank’s Vancouver Winter Olympics shirt was inside out. Percy wore pajama pants and a bronze breastplate, which was an interesting fashion statement. Cath's bangs stood straight up, and her quiver hung around her waist with the wrong side forward, arrows threatening to spill out of the other end. Hazel’s hair was all blown to one side, as though she’d walked through a cyclone; and Leo had accidentally set himself on fire. His T-shirt was in charred tatters. His arms were smoking.

About a hundred yards to port, a massive cruise ship glided past. Tourists waved at them from fifteen or sixteen rows of balconies. Some smiled and took pictures. None of them looked surprised to see an Ancient Greek trireme. Maybe the Mist made it look like a fishing boat, or perhaps the cruisers thought the Argo II was a tourist attraction.

 

The cruise ship blew its horn again, and the Argo II had a shaking fit.

Coach Hedge plugged his ears. “Do they have to be so loud?”

“They’re just saying hi,” Cath speculated.

“WHAT?” Hedge yelled back.

The ship edged past them, heading out to sea. The tourists kept waving. If they found it strange that the Argo II was populated by half-asleep kids in armor and pajamas and a man with goat legs, they didn’t let on.

“Bye!” Leo called, raising his smoking hand.

“Can I man the ballistae?” Hedge asked.

“No,” Leo said through a forced smile.

Hazel rubbed her eyes and looked across the glittering green water. “Where are- oh... Wow.”

I followed her gaze and gasped. Without the cruise ship blocking our view, I saw a mountain jutting from the sea less than half a mile to the north. I had seen impressive cliffs before. I’d driven Highway 1 along the California coast. I’d even fallen down the Grand Canyon with Jason and flown back up. But neither was as amazing as this massive fist of blinding white rock thrust into the sky. On one side, the limestone cliffs were almost completely sheer, dropping into the sea over a thousand feet below, as near as I could figure. On the other side, the mountain sloped in tiers, covered in green forest, so that the whole thing reminded me of a colossal sphinx, worn down over the millennia, with a massive white head and chest, and a green cloak over its back.

 

“The Rock of Gibraltar,” Annabeth said in awe. “At the tip of Spain. And over there-” She pointed south, to a more distant stretch of red and ochre hills. “That must be Africa. We’re at the mouth of the Mediterranean.”

The morning was warm, but I shivered. Despite the wide stretch of sea in front of us, I felt like I was standing at an impassable barrier. Once in the Mediterranean - the Mare Nostrum - we would be in the ancient lands. If the legends were true, our quest would become ten times more dangerous.

“What now?” I asked. “Do we just sail in?”

“Why not?” Leo said. “It’s a big shipping channel. Boats go in and out all the time.”

_Not triremes full of demigods_ , I thought.

Annabeth gazed at the Rock of Gibraltar. I recognized that brooding expression on my friend’s face. It almost always meant that she anticipated trouble.

“In the old days,” Annabeth said, “they called this area the pillars of Hercules. The Rock was supposed to be one pillar. The other was one of the African mountains. Nobody is sure which one.”

 

“Hercules, huh?” Percy frowned. “That guy was like the Starbucks of Ancient Greece. Everywhere you turn - there he is.”

A thunderous boom shook the Argo II, though I wasn’t sure where it came from this time. I didn’t see any other ships, and the skies were clear.

My mouth suddenly felt dry. “So... these Pillars of Hercules. Are they dangerous?”

Annabeth stayed focused on the white cliffs, as if waiting for the Mark of Athena to blaze to life. “For Greeks, the pillars marked the end of the known world. The Romans said the pillars were inscribed with a Latin warning-”

“Non plus ultra,” Percy said.

Annabeth looked stunned. “Yeah. Nothing Further Beyond. How did you know?”

Percy pointed. “Because I’m looking at it.”

Directly ahead of them, in the middle of the straits, an island had shimmered into existence. I was positive no island had been there before. It was a small hilly mass of land, covered in forests and ringed with white beaches. Not very impressive compared to Gibraltar, but in front of the island, jutting from waves about a hundred yards offshore, were two white Grecian columns as tall as the Argo’s masts. Between the columns, huge silver words glittered underwater - maybe an illusion, or maybe inlaid in the sand: NON PLUS ULTRA.

“Guys, do I turn around?” Leo asked nervously. “Or...”

 

No one answered - maybe because, like me, they had noticed the figure standing on the beach. As the ship approached the columns, I saw a dark-haired man in purple robes, his arms crossed, staring intently at their ship as if he were expecting them. I couldn’t tell much else about him from this distance, but judging from his posture, he wasn’t happy.

Frank inhaled sharply. “Could that be-?”

“Hercules,” Cath said. “The most powerful demigod of all time.”

The Argo II was only a few hundred yards from the columns now.

“Need an answer,” Leo said urgently. “I can turn, or we can take off. The stabilizers are working again. But I need to know quick-”

“We have to keep going,” Annabeth said. “I think he’s guarding these straits. If that’s really Hercules, sailing or flying away wouldn’t do any good. He’ll want to talk to us.”

I resisted the urge to use charmspeak. I wanted to yell at Leo: _Fly! Get us out of here!_ Unfortunately, I had a feeling that Annabeth was right. If we wanted to pass into the Mediterranean, we couldn’t avoid this meeting.

“Won’t Hercules be on our side?” I asked hopefully. “I mean... he’s one of us, right?”

Jason grunted. “He was a son of Zeus, but when he died, he became a god. You can never be sure with gods.”

I remembered our meeting with Bacchus in Kansas - another god who used to be a demigod. He hadn’t been exactly helpful.

 

“Great,” Percy said. “Eight of us against Hercules.”

“And a satyr!” Hedge added. “We can take him.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Annabeth said. “We send ambassadors ashore. A small group - one or two at most. Try to talk with him.”

“I’ll go,” Jason said. “He’s a son of Zeus. I’m the son of Jupiter. Maybe he’ll be friendly to me.”

“Or maybe he’ll hate you,” Percy suggested. “Half brothers don’t always get along.”

Jason scowled. “Thank you, Mr. Optimism.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Annabeth said. “At least Jason and Hercules have something in common. And we need our best diplomat. Somebody who’s good with words.”

All eyes turned to me.

I tried to avoid screaming and jumping over the side. A bad premonition gnawed at my gut. But if Jason was going ashore, I wanted to be with him. Maybe this hugely powerful god would turn out to be helpful. We had to have good luck once in a while, didn’t they?

“Fine,” I said. “Just let me change my clothes.”


	28. Chapter 28

**EMILY-CATHERINE**

 

Once Leo had anchored the Argo II between the pillars, Jason summoned the wind to carry him and Piper ashore. The rest of us could do nothing except wait.

 

Annabeth had gone belowdeck to study the map for her quest again. Hazel was trying not to throw up in her cabin, and Frank was keeping her company.

 

Coach Hedge had watched Percy pace back and forth for maybe three minutes before losing his patience and going to his tv - to watch some fighting show, no doubt.

 

I was keeping Leo company while he worked on the ship, grumbling about how it was always damaged in _some_ way. It gave me a good opportunity to practice my singing, which was draining me less and less every time I did it. I had my book of Ancient Greek hymns and songs with me, and I was trying out more complicated songs in hope of memorizing them.

 

"Hey, Sunshine, I've been thinking," Leo started suddenly, making my head snap up. "There's basically a song for everything in there, right? You've got mourning songs, you've got lullabies... are there any for Oracle-y purposes? Like, if the Oracle needed inspiration or something?"

 

"Uh, yeah, but it's very complicated. The songs, they're very hard to get right - mortals had to study them for months in a special sort of temple-school-mashup-place dedicated to my father before they were allowed to actually perform them at Delphi. And they were only ever performed while the Pythia - the host of the Oracle - was preparing to answer questions and give prophecies. But I've told you most of this before, why are you asking again now?"

 

"Well, I thought maybe, if there are songs to prepare the Oracle to tell the future, and since you get premonitions sometimes when you sing-"

 

"You think I could try to channel the premonitions through the ritual songs? Gods, that might actually work. Babe, you're a genius!" I threw my arms around his neck from the side and pecked his machine-grease-free cheek.

 

Just then, the air next to us shimmered. I walked closer to the forming Iris-Message to see Piper and Jason holding a severed horn. I gave them a small salute and Piper gave one back as Jason started talking to Leo.

 

"Hey, man, is the ship ready for aerial mode?"

 

* * * * *

 

Before Jason and Piper touched down, the anchor was already up.

 

Jason summoned a gale so strong, it pushed us into the sky, while Percy sent a ten-foot-tall wave against the shore, knocking Hercules down a second time, in a cascade of seawater and pineapples.

By the time the god regained his feet and started lobbing coconuts at us from far below, the Argo II was already sailing through the clouds above the Mediterranean.

  
After leaving the Pillars of Hercules - unscathed except for a few coconuts lodged in the hull’s bronze plating - the ship traveled by air for a few hundred miles.

 

I'd hoped the ancient lands wouldn’t be as bad as we’d heard. But it was almost like a commercial: _You’ll notice the difference immediately!_

Several times an hour, something attacked the ship. A flock of flesh-eating Stymphalian birds swooped out of the night sky, and Festus torched them. Storm spirits swirled around the mast, and Jason blasted them with lightning. While Coach Hedge was having dinner on the foredeck, a wild pegasus appeared from nowhere, stampeded over the coach’s enchiladas, and flew off again, leaving cheesy hoof prints all across the deck.

“What was that for?” the coach demanded.

The sight of the pegasus made me wish Blackjack were here. We hadn’t seen him in days. Tempest and Arion also hadn’t shown themselves. Maybe they didn’t want to venture into the Mediterranean. If so, I couldn’t blame them.

Finally around midnight, after the ninth or tenth aerial attack, Jason turned to Percy as I shot an arrow at a faraway harpy. “How about you get some sleep? We’ll keep blasting stuff out of the sky as long as we can. Then we can go by sea for a while, and you can take point.”

I walked over to Leo to check on him as Percy went belowdeck to his cabin.

 

"How are we looking?" It took him a second to respond.

 

"Good, the ship's holding up great. You should get some sleep, though. Jason and I will handle it."

 

"I'm not sleeping until you are." He sighed, probably having expected that response.

 

The attacks kept coming for hours and hours, and if it weren't for my self-restocking quiver, I'd have ran out of arrows a dozen times before we hit the water.

 

Jason was utterly exhausted when he went to get Percy. He'd used his powers for most of the attacks, since his weapon was short-range, as opposed to my bow-and-arrows. He'd been flying from monster to monster for the last two hours without a single break.

When Percy came up, he had Annabeth with him.

They stood on deck, alone except for me and Leo, who was still manning the helm. He must have been shattered, but he still refused to go to sleep, no matter how many times I'd begged him to go to bed.

“I don’t want any more Shrimpzilla surprises,” he'd insist.

We’d all tried to convince Leo that the skolopendra attack hadn’t been entirely his fault, but he wouldn’t listen. Percy probably knew how he felt. Not forgiving himself for mistakes was one of Percy’s biggest talents.

* * * * *

  
It was about four in the morning. The weather was miserable. The fog was so thick, I hadn't been able see Festus at the end of the prow, and warm drizzle hung in the air like a bead curtain. As we sailed into twenty-foot swells, the sea heaving underneath them, I was next to Hazel in her cabin, with her also heaving. Every drip of nectar she'd drink would come straight back up, so I'd finally resorted to singing a hymn to my father. She looked a little less green, but I was paling a little, my energy draining.

“Leo, stop!” I heard Percy yell above deck. I frowned, and so did Hazel, but just then, the entire ship shook, as if something had rammed into it.

 

The alarm bell sounded, but I before I could turn around, I got hit up the head and I blacked out for a couple of seconds due to the pain. When I came by, I was next to Hazel and Piper, who were both bound hand and foot, just as I was. Piper had a gag in her mouth, and Jason was very much unconscious.  We were brought up the stairs by a bunch of half-dolphin men, two of which were covered with bee stings. I saw Percy and Annabeth standing at the centre of a bunch more half-dolphins, and Coach Hedge was lying tied-up in a pile of loot, and Leo was surrounded by pieces of rope, looking only half-conscious.

 

I saw red, but I forced myself to stay calm.

“Excellent!” a man in a golden mask gloated. He directed his warriors to dump Jason by the crossbows. Then he examined us like we were Christmas presents, which made me grit my teeth - I hated getting catcalled, but this was much,  _much_  worse.

“The boy is no use to me,” the gold dude said. “But we have an understanding with the witch Circe. She will buy the women - either as slaves or trainees, depending on their skill. But not you, lovely Annabeth.”

Annabeth recoiled. “You are not taking me anywhere.”

Percy’s hand crept to his pocket as the golden warrior tutted. “Oh, sadly, Annabeth, you will not be staying with me. I would love that. But you and your friend Percy are spoken for. A certain goddess is paying a high bounty for your capture - alive, if possible, though she didn’t say you had to be unharmed.”

At that moment, Piper caused the disturbance we all needed. She wailed so loudly it could be heard through her gag. Then she fainted against the nearest guard, knocking him over. Hazel got the idea and crumpled to the deck, kicking her legs and thrashing like she was having a fit. I copied her movement, sprouting random sentences of prophecies, hymns, poems, anything I could think of - as long as it was garbled and made exactly zero sense.

Percy drew Riptide and lashed out. The blade should have gone straight through Golden Dude's neck, but the golden warrior was unbelievably fast. He dodged and parried as the dolphin warriors backed up, guarding the other captives while giving their captain room to battle. They chattered and squeaked, egging him on, and Percy got the sinking suspicion the crew was used to this sort of entertainment. They didn’t feel their leader was in any sort of danger.

The other guy was that good. Many of Percy’s powers had gotten stronger over the years, but now, too late, I realized that swordplay wasn’t one of them.

He was rusty - at least against an adversary like this guy.

 

They battled back and forth, thrusting and parrying, with one of the half-dolphins holding a knife at Annabeth’s throat in case she tried anything tricky.

 

The golden mask was unnerving, but I remembered an old story, something about a bunch of pirates who captured the wrong person and got a dophination.

Percy feinted and thrust at Golden Dude's gut, but he anticipated the move. He knocked Percy’s sword out of his hand again, and once more Riptide flew into the sea.

Golden Dude laughed easily. He wasn’t even winded. He pressed the tip of his golden sword against Percy’s sternum.

“A good try,” said the pirate. “But now you’ll be chained and transported to Gaea’s minions. They are quite eager to spill your blood and wake the goddess.”

As Percy stood there, disarmed and outmatched, I saw Percy's face change ever-so-slightly - people who didn't know him like Annabeth or I did wouldn't have noticed it, but I did. I saw a plan forming in his eyes.

 

He was probably thinking the same thing as I was; Chrysaor, son of Medusa, had a crew that only feared the person - or, rather, god - who turned them into what they were now.

Percy glanced toward the stern and spotted something - I'm guessing Frank, since he was the only one not present - and suppressed a smile (another thing people who didn't know him wouldn't notice).

  
“Fine!” He shouted, so loudly that he got everyone’s attention. “Take us away, if our captain will let you.”

Chrysaor turned his golden mask. “What captain? My men searched the ship. There is no one else.”

Percy raised his hands dramatically. “The god appears only when he wishes. But he is our leader. He runs our camp for demigods. Doesn’t he, Annabeth?”

Annabeth was quick. “Yes!” She nodded enthusiastically. “Mr. D! The great Dionysus!”

A ripple of uneasiness passed through the dolphin-men. One dropped his sword.

“Stand fast!” Chrysaor bellowed. “There is no god on this ship. They are trying to scare you.”

“You should be scared!” Percy looked at the pirate crew with sympathy. “Dionysus will be severely cranky with you for having delayed our voyage. He will punish all of us. Didn’t you notice the girls falling into the wine god’s madness?”

Hazel, Piper and I had stopped the shaking fits. We were sitting on the deck, staring at Percy, but when he glared at us pointedly, we started hamming it up again, trembling and flopping around like fish. The dolphin-men fell over themselves trying to get away from their captives.

“Fakes!” Chrysaor roared. “Shut up, Percy Jackson. Your camp director is not here. He was recalled to Olympus. This is common knowledge.”

“So you admit Dionysus is our director!” Percy said.

“He was,” Chrysaor corrected. “Everyone knows that.”

Percy gestured at the golden warrior like he’d just betrayed himself. “You see? We are doomed. If you don’t believe me, let’s check the ice chest!”

Percy stormed over to the magical cooler. No one tried to stop him. He knocked open the lid and rummaged through the ice. I smiled through my 'fit' as he held up a can at the warriors.

 

“Behold!” Percy shouted. “The god’s chosen beverage. Tremble before the horror of Diet Coke!”

The dolphin-men began to panic. They were on the edge of retreat. I could feel it.

“The god will take your ship,” Percy warned. “He will finish your transformation into dolphins, or make you insane, or transform you into insane dolphins! Your only hope is to swim away now, quickly!”

“Ridiculous!” Chrysaor’s voice turned shrill. He didn’t seem sure where to level his sword - at Percy or his own crew.

“Save yourselves!” Percy warned. “It is too late for us!”

Then he gasped and pointed to the spot where Frank was hiding. “Oh, no! Frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!”

Nothing happened.

“I said,” Percy repeated, “Frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!”

Frank stumbled out of nowhere, making a big show of grabbing his throat. “Oh, no,” he said, like he was reading from a teleprompter. “I am turning into a crazy dolphin.”

 

He began to change, his nose elongating into a snout, his skin becoming sleek and gray. He fell to the deck as a dolphin, his tail thumping against the boards.

The pirate crew disbanded in terror, chattering and clicking as they dropped their weapons, forgot the captives, ignored Chrysaor’s orders, and jumped overboard. In the confusion, Annabeth moved quickly to cut all of our bonds.

Within seconds, Chrysaor was alone and surrounded. None of us had weapons except for Annabeth’s knife and Hedge’s hooves, but the murderous looks on our faces evidently convinced the golden warrior he was doomed.

He backed to the edge of the rail.

“This isn’t over, Jackson,” Chrysaor growled. “I will have my revenge-”

His words were cut short by Frank, who had changed form again. An eight-hundred-pound grizzly bear can definitely break up a conversation. He sideswiped Chrysaor and raked the golden mask off his helmet. Chrysaor screamed, instantly covering his face with his arms and tumbling into the water.

They ran to the rail. Chrysaor had disappeared.

“That was brilliant!” Annabeth kissed Percy as I ran to help Leo up.

 

“It was desperate,” Percy corrected in the distance. “And we need to get rid of this pirate trireme.”

“Burn it?” Annabeth asked.

Percy looked at the Diet Coke in his hand. “No. I’ve got another idea.”

I got Leo back on his feet, thanks to a little nectar and a quick, easy hymn. Piper tended to Jason’s wounds, but he wasn’t as badly hurt as he looked. Mostly he was just ashamed that he’d gotten overpowered again, which I could relate to.

We returned all our own supplies to the proper places and tidied up from the invasion while Coach Hedge had a field day on the enemy ship, breaking everything he could find with his baseball bat.

When he was done, Percy loaded the enemy’s weapons back on the pirate ship. Their storeroom was full of treasure, but Percy insisted that they touch none of it.

  
“I can sense about six million dollars’ worth of gold aboard,” Hazel said. “Plus diamonds, rubies-”

“Six m-million?” Frank stammered. “Canadian dollars or American?”

“Leave it,” Percy said. “It’s part of the tribute.”

“Tribute?” Hazel asked.

“Oh.” Piper nodded. “Kansas.”

Jason grinned. He’d been there too when they’d met the wine god. “Crazy. But I like it.”

Finally Percy went aboard the pirate ship and opened the flood valves. He asked Leo to drill a few extra holes in the bottom of the hull with his power tools, and Leo was happy to oblige.

The crew of the Argo II assembled at the rail and cut the grappling lines. Piper brought out her new horn of plenty and, on Percy’s direction, willed it to spew Diet Coke, which came out with the strength of a fire hose, dousing the enemy deck. Percy thought it would take hours, but the ship sank remarkably fast, filling with Diet Coke and seawater as I sang a ritual poem - usually sang when slaughtering an animal, but it was the closest thing we had.

“Dionysus,” Percy called, holding up Chrysaor’s golden mask. “Or Bacchus - whatever. You made this victory possible, even if you weren’t here. Your enemies trembled at your name... or your Diet Coke, or something. So, yeah, thank you.”

The words were hard to get out, but Percy managed not to gag. “We give this ship to you as tribute. We hope you like it.”

“Six million in gold,” Leo muttered. “He’d better like it.”

“Shh,” Hazel scolded. “Precious metal isn’t all that great. Believe me.”

Percy threw the golden mask aboard the vessel, which was now sinking even faster, brown fizzy liquid spewing out the trireme’s oar slots and bubbling from the cargo hold, turning the sea frothy brown.

Percy summoned a wave, and the enemy ship was swamped. Leo steered the Argo II away as the pirate vessel disappeared underwater.

“Isn’t that polluting?” Piper asked.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Jason told her. “If Bacchus likes it, the ship should vanish.”

  
After our bout with the pirates, we decided to fly the rest of the way to Rome. Jason insisted he was well enough to take sentry duty, along with Coach Hedge, who was still so charged with adrenaline that every time the ship hit turbulence, he swung his bat and yelled, “Die!”

We had a couple of hours before daybreak, so Jason suggested Percy try to get a few more hours of sleep.

“It’s fine, man,” Jason said. “Give somebody else a chance to save the ship, huh?”

The rest of the flight was reasonably uneventful, thank the gods. When I saw the Italian coast, I nudged Jason and pointed at it.

 

"It's beautiful," he muttered as we closed in on Rome. I nodded in agreement.

 

"I'll go wake Percy." I went downstairs as the landing gear was being lowered and knocked on Percy's door.

  
“Hey, dude,” I said. “We’re descending over Rome. You really should see this.”

The sky was brilliant blue, as if the stormy weather had never happened. The sun rose over the distant hills, so everything below them shone and sparkled like the entire city of Rome had just come out of the car wash.

I had seen big cities before, but the sheer vastness of Rome grabbed me by the throat and made it hard to breathe. The city seemed to have no regard for the limits of geography. It spread through hills and valleys, jumped over the Tiber with dozens of bridges, and just kept sprawling to the horizon. Streets and alleys zigzagged with no rhyme or reason through quilts of neighborhoods. Glass office buildings stood next to excavation sites. A cathedral stood next to a line of Roman columns, which stood next to a modern soccer stadium. In some neighborhoods, old stucco villas with red-tiled roofs crowded the cobblestone streets, so that if Percy concentrated just on those areas, he could imagine he was back in ancient times. Everywhere he looked, there were wide piazzas and traffic-clogged streets. Parks cut across the city with a crazy collection of palm trees, pines, junipers, and olive trees, as if Rome couldn’t decide what part of the world it belonged to - or maybe it just believed all the world still belonged to Rome.

It was as if the city that the earth goddess intended on razing all human civilization, and this city, which had stood for thousands of years, was saying back to her: _You wanna dissolve this city, Dirt Face? Give it a shot._

In other words, it was the Coach Hedge of mortal cities - only taller.

“We’re setting down in that park,” Leo announced, pointing to a wide green space dotted with palm trees. “Let’s hope the Mist makes us look like a large pigeon or something.”

I wished Jason’s sister Thalia were here. She’d always had a way of bending the Mist to make people see what she wanted. I had never been very good at that - I could only conceal a dagger, maybe my bow and arrows if I was lucky.

 

I didn’t notice any cars veering off the road or Romans pointing to the sky and screaming “Aliens!” so I assumed we were fine. The Argo II set down in the grassy field and the oars retracted.

 

The noise of traffic was all around us, but the park itself was peaceful and deserted. To our left, a green lawn sloped toward a line of woods. An old villa nestled in the shade of some weird-looking pine trees with thin curvy trunks that shot up thirty or forty feet, then sprouted into puffy canopies. They reminded me of trees in those Dr. Seuss books our mom used to read us when we were little.

  
To our right, snaking along the top of a hill, was a long brick wall with notches at the top for archers - maybe a medieval defensive line, maybe Ancient Roman. I wasn’t sure.

To the north, about a mile away through the folds of the city, the top of the Colosseum rose above the rooftops, looking just like it did in travel photos. That’s when my legs started shaking. He was actually here. We were in the heart of the old Roman Empire, enemy territory for a Greek demigod. In a way, this place had shaped my life as much as Camp.

Jason pointed to the base of the archers’ wall, where steps led down into some kind of tunnel.

“I think I know where we are,” he said. “That’s the Tomb of the Scipios.”

Percy frowned. “Scipio... Reyna’s pegasus?”

“No,” Annabeth put in. “They were a noble Roman family, and... wow, this place is amazing.”

Jason nodded. “I’ve studied maps of Rome before. I’ve always wanted to come here, but...”

Nobody bothered finishing that sentence. Looking at my friends’ faces, I could tell they were just as much in awe as I was. We’d made it. We’d landed in Rome - _the_ Rome.

“Plans?” Hazel asked. “Nico has until sunset - at best. And this entire city is supposedly getting destroyed today.”

Percy shook himself out of his daze. “You’re right. Annabeth... did you zero in on that spot from your bronze map?”

Her gray eyes turned extra thunderstorm dark, which I could interpret just fine; she was threatening Percy about something..

“Yes,” she said carefully. “It’s on the Tiber River. I think I can find it, but I should-”

“Take me along,” Percy finished. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Annabeth glared daggers at him. “That’s not-”

“Safe,” he supplied. “One demigod walking through Rome alone. I’ll go with you as far as the Tiber. We can use that letter of introduction, hopefully meet the river god Tiberinus. Maybe he can give you some help or advice. Then you can go on alone from there.”

They had a silent staring contest, but Percy didn’t back down. He'd told me that when he and Annabeth started dating, his mother had drummed it into his head: _It’s good manners to walk your date to the door_. If that was true, it had to be good manners to walk her to the start of her epic solo death quest.

“Fine,” Annabeth muttered. “Hazel, now that we’re in Rome, do you think you can pinpoint Nico’s location?”

Hazel blinked, as if coming out of a trance from watching the Percy/Annabeth Show. “Um... hopefully, if I get close enough. I’ll have to walk around the city. Frank, would you come with me?”

Frank beamed. “Absolutely.”

“And, uh... Leo,” Hazel added. “It might be a good idea if you came along too. The fish-centaurs said we’d need your help with something mechanical.”

“Yeah,” Leo said, “no problem.”

Frank’s smile dampened, and I knew the boys still didn't get along quite as well as Hazel and I did.

Piper drew her knife and set it on the rail. “Jason, Cathy and I can watch the ship for now. I’ll see what Katoptris can show me. But, Hazel, if you guys get a fix on Nico’s location, don’t go in there by yourselves. Come back and get us. It’ll take all of us to fight the giants.”

 

"Besides, you might need my healing. I'll sing and try to get a premonition... Leo thought of something new I can try." I was determined to save Nico, whatever it took out of my health.

Neither Piper nor I said the obvious: even all of us together wouldn’t be enough, unless we had a god on their side.

“Good idea,” Percy said. “How about we plan to meet back here at... what?”

“Three this afternoon?” Jason suggested. “That’s probably the latest we could rendezvous and still hope to fight the giants and save Nico. If something happens to change the plan, try to send an Iris-message.”

The others nodded in agreement, but I noticed several of them glancing at Annabeth. Another thing no one wanted to say: Annabeth would be on a different schedule. She might be back at three, or much later, or never. But she would be on her own, searching for the Athena Parthenos.

Coach Hedge grunted. “That’ll give me time to eat the coconuts - I mean dig the coconuts out of our hull. Percy, Annabeth... I don’t like you two going off on your own. Just remember: behave. If I hear about any funny business, I will ground you until the Styx freezes over.”

The idea of getting grounded when they were about to risk their lives was so ridiculous, I couldn’t help smiling.

“We’ll be back soon,” Percy promised. He looked around at us. “Good luck, everyone.”

Leo lowered the gangplank, and Percy and Annabeth were first off the ship.


	29. Chapter 29

**EMILY-CATHERINE**

I was sitting on deck, practicing the Ancient Ritual songs of Delphi when Piper and Jason came up, along with Percy

We gathered on deck so that Coach Hedge could hear the story as well. When Percy was done, I still couldn’t believe it.

“So Annabeth was kidnapped on a motor scooter,” Piper summed up, “by Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.”

“Not kidnapped, exactly,” Percy said. “But I’ve got this bad feeling...” He took a deep breath, like he was trying hard not to freak out. “Anyway, she’s-she’s gone. Maybe I shouldn’t have let her, but-”

“You had to,” Piper said. “You knew she had to go alone. Besides, Annabeth is tough and smart. She’ll be fine.”

Piper put some charmspeak in her voice, which maybe wasn’t cool, but Percy needed to be able to focus. If we went into battle, Annabeth wouldn’t want him getting hurt because he was too distracted about her.

His shoulders relaxed a little. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, Gregory - I mean Tiberinus - said we had less time to rescue Nico than we thought. Hazel and the guys aren’t back yet?”

Piper checked the time on the helm control. She hadn’t realized how late it was getting. “It’s two in the afternoon. We said three o’clock for a rendezvous.”

“At the latest,” Jason said.

Percy pointed at Piper’s dagger. “Tiberinus said you could find Nico’s location... you know, with that.”

Piper bit her lip.

 

“I’ve tried,” she said. “The dagger doesn’t always show what I want to see. In fact, it hardly ever does.”

“Please,” Percy said. “Try again.”

He pleaded with those sea-green eyes, like a cute baby seal that needed help. I'd always wondered how Annabeth ever won an argument with this guy.

“Fine,” she sighed, and drew her dagger.

“While you’re at it,” said Coach Hedge, “see if you can get the latest baseball scores. Italians don’t cover baseball worth beans.”

“Shh.” Piper studied the bronze blade. The light shimmered. She saw a loft apartment filled with Roman demigods. A dozen of them stood around a dining table as Octavian talked and pointed to a big map. Reyna paced next to the windows, gazing down at Central Park.

“That’s not good,” Jason muttered. “They’ve already set up a forward base in Manhattan.”

“And that map shows Long Island,” Percy said.

“They’re scouting the territory,” Jason guessed. “Discussing invasion routes.”

I did not want to see that.

 

Light rippled across the blade. We saw ruins - a few crumbling walls, a single column, a stone floor covered with moss and dead vines - all clustered on a grassy hillside dotted with pine trees.

“I was just there,” Percy said. “That’s in the old Forum.”

 

The view zoomed in. On one side of the stone floor, a set of stairs had been excavated, leading down to a modern iron gate with a padlock. The blade’s image zoomed straight through the doorway, down a spiral stairwell, and into a dark, cylindrical chamber like the inside of a grain silo.

Piper dropped the blade.

“What’s wrong?” Jason asked. “It was showing us something.”

Piper felt like the boat was back on the ocean, rocking under her feet. “We can’t go there.”

I frowned. “Piper, Nico is dying. We’ve got to find him. Not to mention, Rome is about to get destroyed.”

She was silent for a few moments, and then seemingly forced herself to look at the blade again. This time, we saw two giants in gladiator armor sitting on oversized praetors’ chairs. The giants toasted each other with golden goblets as if they’d just won an important fight. Between them stood a large bronze jar.

The vision zoomed in again. Inside the jar, Nico di Angelo was curled in a ball, no longer moving, all the pomegranate seeds eaten.

“We’re too late,” Jason said.

“No,” I said. “No, I can’t believe that. Maybe he’s gone into a deeper trance to buy time. We have to hurry.”

The blade’s surface went dark. Piper slipped it back into its sheath.

  
“We should wait for the others,” she said. “Hazel, Frank, and Leo should be back soon.”

“We can’t wait,” I insisted.

Coach Hedge grunted. “It’s just two giants. If you guys want, I can take them.”

“Uh, Coach,” Jason said, “that’s a great offer, but we need you to man the ship - or goat the ship. Whatever.”

Hedge scowled. “And let you four have all the fun?”

 

"I'll stay with you, Coach. I have a gut feeling I need to do something here soon.

Percy gripped the satyr’s arm. “Hazel and the others need you here. When they get back, they’ll need your leadership. You’re their rock.”

“Yeah.” Jason managed to keep a straight face. “Leo always says you’re his rock. You can tell them where we’ve gone and bring the ship around to meet us at the Forum.”

“And here.” Piper unstrapped Katoptris and put it in Coach Hedge’s hands.

The satyr’s eyes widened. A demigod was never supposed to leave her weapon behind, but Piper was fed up with evil visions. She’d rather face her death without any more previews.

“Keep an eye on us with the blade,” she suggested. “And you can check the baseball scores.”

That sealed the deal. Hedge nodded grimly, prepared to do his part for the quest.

“All right,” he said. “But if any giants come this way-”

“Feel free to blast them,” Jason said.

“What about annoying tourists?”

“No,” we all said in unison.

“Bah. Fine. Just don’t take too long, or I’m coming after you with ballistae blazing.”

 

"Good luck, guys," I said, giving them all a quick hug before they took off.

 

I returned to my book, reluctant to waste time on studying, but determined to get whatever I needed to do right so I could save Nico.

 

After what felt like hours of studying, just as I felt confident enough to start trying to sing, I straightened. The others needed us - I could feel it.

 

"Coach, get up here!" I ran past Coach Hedge's cabin as I rushed up. I was suddenly thankful I'd spent all that time at Bunker 9 instead of doing the camp regular stuff for all those past months; I knew enough about the controls to get us going.

 

"Where are we going? Who are we fighting?"

 

"The Colosseum, and we're fighting the Giants. Now get the ballistae ready, we're picking up Leo, Hazel and Frank on the way." I steered us towards the giant monument in a curve to pick up the others, and saw it in its full former glory if I focused through the Mist enough.

 

Once I saw my friends standing ready in an abandoned field, I threw down a rope ladder and helped them over the side of the ship.

 

"Explain later, kill giants now," was all I said when Leo opened his mouth. He ran to the helm and got us going much faster than I could've on my own. I kept my eye out and internally counted as Coach Hedge aimed the way I told him to.

 

_Almost close enough, almost close enough, almost..._

 

"Fire now!" I yelled at Hedge, who shot at the purple-haired giant in front of Percy and Jason. Leo started landing the ship as Percy climbed out of a trench and Jason poked his head out of an improvised bomb shelter of a plastic horse.

 

Ephialtes lay charred and groaning on the arena floor, the sand around him seared into a halo of glass by the heat of the Greek fire. Otis was floundering in a lake, trying to re-form, but from the arms down he looked like a puddle of burnt oatmeal.

 

Percy staggered over to Jason and clapped him on the shoulder. The ghostly crowd gave us a standing ovation as Leo clicked some buttons so the Argo II extended its landing gear and settled on the arena floor.

 

Coach Hedge danced around the firing platform, pumping his fist in the air and yelling, "That's what I'm talking about!"

 

Percy turned to the emperor’s box. “Well?” he yelled at Bacchus. “Was that entertaining enough for you, you wine-breathed little-”

“No need for that.” Suddenly the god was standing right next to him in the arena. He brushed Dorito dust off his purple robes. “I have decided you are worthy partners for this combat.”

“Partners?” Jason growled. “You did nothing!”

Bacchus walked to the edge of the lake. The water instantly drained, leaving an Otis-headed pile of mush. Bacchus picked his way to the bottom and looked up at the crowd. He raised his thyrsus.

The crowd jeered and hollered and pointed their thumbs down. I had never been sure whether that meant live or die. I’d heard it both ways.

Bacchus chose the more entertaining option. He smacked Otis’s head with his pinecone staff, and the giant pile of Otismeal disintegrated completely.

The crowd went wild. Bacchus climbed out of the lake and strutted over to Ephialtes, who was still lying spread-eagled, overcooked and smoking.

Again, Bacchus raised his thyrsus.

“DO IT!” the crowd roared.

“DON’T DO IT!” Ephialtes wailed.

Bacchus tapped the giant on the nose, and Ephialtes crumbled to ashes.

The ghosts cheered and threw spectral confetti as Bacchus strode around the stadium with his arms raised triumphantly, exulting in the worship. He grinned at the demigods. “That, my friends, is a show! And of course I did something. I killed two giants!”

As my friends and I disembarked from the ship, the crowd of ghosts shimmered and disappeared. Piper and Nico struggled down from the emperor’s box as the Colosseum’s magical renovations began to turn into mist. The arena floor remained solid, but otherwise the stadium looked as if it hadn’t hosted a good giant killing for eons. I ran over to Nico and hugged him.

"Cath?" I pulled back and inspected his face. "Gods, Nico, don't ever do that to me or your sister _ever_ again, you hear me?" I helped get his arm over my shoulder and supported him to the others, Piper on his other side.

  
“Well,” Bacchus said. “That was fun. You have my permission to continue your voyage.”

“Your permission?” Percy snarled.

“Yes.” Bacchus raised an eyebrow. “Although your voyage may be a little harder than you expect, son of Neptune.”

“Poseidon,” Percy corrected him automatically. “What do you mean about my voyage?”

“You might try the parking lot behind the Emmanuel Building,” Bacchus said. “Best place to break through. Now, good-bye, my friends. And, ah, good luck with that other little matter.”

The god vaporized in a cloud of mist that smelled faintly of grape juice. Jason ran to meet Piper, Nico and me.

  
Coach Hedge trotted up to Percy, with Hazel, Frank, and Leo close behind. “Was that Dionysus?” Hedge asked. “I love that guy!”

“You’re alive!” Percy said to the others. “The giants said you were captured. What happened?”

Leo shrugged. “Oh, just another brilliant plan by Leo Valdez. You’d be amazed what you can do with an Archimedes sphere, a girl who can sense stuff underground, and a weasel.”

“I was the weasel,” Frank said glumly.

“Basically,” Leo explained, “I activated a hydraulic screw with the Archimedes device - which is going to be awesome once I install it in the ship, by the way. Hazel sensed the easiest path to drill to the surface. We made a tunnel big enough for a weasel, and Frank climbed up with a simple transmitter that I slapped together. After that, it was just a matter of waiting maybe three seconds before we saw the Argo II above us, curtesy of Mille and her gut feelings. After she and Coach got us, finding you was easy, thanks to that godly light show at the Colosseum.”

I could see Percy understood about ten percent of Leo’s story, but he decided it was enough since he had a more pressing question. “Where’s Annabeth?”

Leo winced. “Yeah, about that... she’s still in trouble, we think. Hurt, broken leg, maybe - at least according to this vision Gaea shown us. Rescuing her is our next stop.”

  
“Tell me about the vision,” Percy said. “Tell me everything.”

The floor shook. The wooden planks began to disappear, spilling sand into the pits of the hypogeum below.

“Let’s talk on board,” Hazel suggested. “We’d better take off while we still can.”

We sailed out of the Colosseum and veered south over the rooftops of Rome.

All around the Piazza del Colosseo, traffic had come to a standstill. A crowd of mortals had gathered, probably wondering about the strange lights and sounds that had come from the ruins. As far as Percy could see, none of the giants’ spectacular plans for destruction had come off successfully. The city looked the same as before. No one seemed to notice the huge Greek trireme rising into the sky.

The demigods gathered around the helm. Jason bandaged Piper’s sprained shoulder while Hazel and I sat at the stern, feeding Nico ambrosia. The son of Hades could barely lift his head. His voice was so quiet, we had to lean in whenever he spoke.

Frank and Leo recounted what had happened in the room with the Archimedes spheres, and the visions Gaea had shown them in the bronze mirror. We quickly decided that our best lead for finding Annabeth was the cryptic advice Bacchus had provided: the Emmanuel Building, whatever that was. Frank started typing at the helm’s computer while Leo tapped furiously at his controls, muttering, “Emmanuel Building. Emmanuel Building.” Coach Hedge tried to help by wrestling with an upside-down street map of Rome.

  
Percy knelt next to Jason and Piper, and they conversed for a little bit.

“There it is!” Leo cried, pointing to his monitor. “Frank, you’re amazing! I’m setting course.”

Frank hunched his shoulders. “I just read the name off the screen. Some Chinese tourist marked it on Google Maps.”

Leo grinned at the others. “He reads Chinese.”

“Just a tiny bit,” Frank said.

“How cool is that?”

“Guys,” I broke in. “I hate to interrupt your admiration session, but you should hear this.”

Hazel and I helped Nico to his feet. He’d always been pale, but now his skin looked like powdered milk. His dark sunken eyes reminded me of photos I’d seen of liberated prisoners-of-war, which I guessed Nico basically was.

“Thank you,” Nico rasped. His eyes darted nervously around the group. “I’d given up hope.”

“You knew about the two camps all along,” Percy said. “You could have told me who I was the first day I arrived at Camp Jupiter, but you didn’t.”

Nico slumped against the helm. “Percy, I’m sorry. I discovered Camp Jupiter last year. My dad led me there, though I wasn’t sure why. He told me the gods had kept the camps separate for centuries and that I couldn’t tell anyone. The time wasn’t right. But he said it would be important for me to know...” He doubled over in a fit of coughing.

Hazel held his shoulders until he could stand again, and I grabbed the nectar. He took a sip and straightened up a little.

“I-I thought Dad meant because of Hazel,” Nico continued. “I’d need a safe place to take her. But now... I think he wanted me to know about both camps so I’d understand how important your quest was, and so I’d search for the Doors of Death.”

The air turned electric - literally, as Jason started throwing off sparks.

“Did you find the doors?” Percy asked.

Nico nodded. “I was a fool. I thought I could go anywhere in the Underworld, but I walked right into Gaea’s trap. I might as well have tried running from a black hole.”

“Um...” Frank chewed his lip. “What kind of black hole are you talking about?”

Nico started to speak, but whatever he needed to say must have been too terrifying. He turned to Hazel.

She put her hand on her brother’s arm. “Nico told me that the Doors of Death have two sides - one in the mortal world, one in the Underworld. The mortal side of the portal is in Greece. It’s heavily guarded by Gaea’s forces. That’s where they brought Nico back into the upper world. Then they transported him to Rome.”

Piper must’ve been nervous, because her cornucopia spit out a cheeseburger. “Where exactly in Greece is this doorway?”

Nico took a rattling breath. “The House of Hades. It’s an underground temple in Epirus. I can mark it on a map, but—but the mortal side of the portal isn’t the problem. In the Underworld, the Doors of Death are in... in...”

  
“Tartarus,” Percy guessed. “The deepest part of the Underworld.”

Nico nodded. “They pulled me into the pit, Percy. The things I saw down there...” His voice broke.

Hazel pursed her lips. “No mortal has ever been to Tartarus,” she explained. “At least, no one has ever gone in and returned alive. It’s the maximum-security prison of Hades, where the old Titans and the other enemies of the gods are bound. It’s where all monsters go when they die on the earth. It’s... well, no one knows exactly what it’s like.”

Her eyes drifted to her brother. The rest of her thought didn’t need to be spoken: _No one except Nico._

Hazel handed him his black sword.

Nico leaned on it like it was an old man’s cane. “Now I understand why Hades hasn’t been able to close the doors,” he said. “Even the gods don’t go into Tartarus. Even the god of death, Thanatos himself, wouldn’t go near that place.”

Leo glanced over from the wheel. “So let me guess. We’ll have to go there.”

Nico shook his head. “It’s impossible. I’m the son of Hades, and even I barely survived. Gaea’s forces overwhelmed me instantly. They’re so powerful down there... no demigod would stand a chance. I almost went insane.”

  
Nico’s eyes looked like shattered glass. I wondered sadly if something inside him had broken permanently.

“Then we’ll sail for Epirus,” Percy said. “We’ll just close the gates on this side.”

“I wish it were that easy,” Nico said. “The doors would have to be controlled on both sides to be closed. It’s like a double seal. Maybe, just maybe, all seven of you working together could defeat Gaea’s forces on the mortal side, at the House of Hades. But unless you had a team fighting simultaneously on the Tartarus side, a team powerful enough to defeat a legion of monsters in their home territory-”

  
“There has to be a way,” Jason said.

Nobody volunteered any brilliant ideas.

After the silence lasted a few seconds, the entire ship was descending toward a big building like a palace.

Annabeth.

 

“We’ll figure out the Tartarus problem later,” Percy said. “Is that the Emmanuel Building?”

Leo nodded. “Bacchus said something about the parking lot in back? Well, there it is. What now?”

“We have to get her out,” I said.

“Well, yeah,” Leo agreed. “But, uh...”

He looked like he wanted to say, _What if we’re too late?_

Wisely, he changed tactic. “There’s a parking lot in the way.”

Percy looked at Coach Hedge. “Bacchus said something about breaking through. Coach, you still have ammo for those ballistae?”

  
The satyr grinned like a wild goat. “I thought you’d never ask."

 

The explosion that he caused momentarily blinded me, but when I could see again, it was raining cars and asphalt into a big hole in the floor.

Chunks of asphalt as big as garage doors tumbled down, along with six or seven Italian cars. One would’ve crushed the Athena Parthenos, but the statue’s glowing aura acted like a force field, and the car bounced off. Unfortunately, it fell straight toward Annabeth.

She jumped to one side, twisting her foot. A bright red Fiat 500 slam into what looked suspiciously like giant not-really-Chinese cuffs, punching through the cavern floor and disappearing with something gigantic and furry inside.

As Arachne fell, she screamed like a freight train on a collision course; but her wailing rapidly faded. All around Annabeth, more chunks of debris slammed through the floor, riddling it with holes.

The Athena Parthenos remained undamaged, though the marble under its pedestal was a starburst of fractures. Annabeth was covered in cobwebs. She trailed strands of leftover spider silk from her arms and legs like the strings of a marionette, but somehow, amazingly, none of the debris had hit her. She wanted to believe that the statue had protected her, though she suspected it might’ve been nothing but luck.

“Annabeth!” Percy yelled.

“Here!” she sobbed.

The room kept shaking, but Annabeth managed to stand. The floor at her feet seemed stable for the moment. Her backpack was missing, along with Daedalus’s laptop. Her bronze knife, which she’d had since she was seven, was also gone - probably fallen into the pit. But I didn’t care. Annabeth was alive.

 

She edged closer to the gaping hole made by the Fiat 500. Jagged rock walls plunged into the darkness as far as I could see from above. A few small ledges jutted out here and there, but Annabeth saw nothing on them - just strands of spider silk dripping over the sides like Christmas tinsel.

We lowered a rope ladder, but Annabeth stood in a daze, staring into the darkness. Then Percy was finally next to her, lacing his fingers in hers.

He turned her gently away from the pit and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest and broke down in tears.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re together.”

He didn’t say _you’re okay_ , or _we’re alive_. After all they’d been through over the last year, he knew the most important thing to her was that they were together. I loved him for knowing the right thing to say to my best friend.

We gathered around them.

 

"Your leg.” I knelt next to Annabeth and examined the Bubble Wrap cast. “Oh, Annabeth, what happened?”

She started to explain. Talking was obviously difficult, but as she went along, her words seemed to come more easily. Percy didn’t let go of her hand, which also made her look more confident. When she finished, our faces were slack with amazement.

“Gods of Olympus,” Jason said. “You did all that alone. With a broken ankle.”

“Well... some of it with a broken ankle.”

Percy grinned. “You made Arachne weave her own trap? I knew you were good, but Holy Hera - Annabeth, you did it. Generations of Athena kids tried and failed. You found the Athena Parthenos!”

Everyone gazed at the statue.

“What do we do with her?” Frank asked. “She’s huge.”

“We’ll have to take her with us to Greece,” Annabeth said. “The statue is powerful. Something about it will help us stop the giants.”

“The giants’ bane stands gold and pale,” Hazel quoted. “Won with pain from a woven jail.” She looked at Annabeth with admiration. “It was Arachne’s jail. You tricked her into weaving it.”

  
 _With a lot of pain_ , Annabeth thought.

Leo raised his hands from holding mine. He made a finger picture frame around the Athena Parthenos like he was taking measurements. “Well, it might take some rearranging, but I think we can fit her through the bay doors in the stable. If she sticks out the end, I might have to wrap a flag around her feet or something.”

Annabeth shuddered. “What about you guys?” she asked. “What happened with the giants?”

Percy told her about rescuing Nico, the appearance of Bacchus, and the fight with the twins in the Colosseum. Nico didn’t say much. The poor guy looked like he’d been wandering through a wasteland for six weeks. Percy explained what Nico had found out about the Doors of Death, and how they had to be closed on both sides. Even with sunlight streaming in from above, Percy’s news made the cavern seem dark again.

“So the mortal side is in Epirus,” she said. “At least that’s somewhere we can reach.”

Nico grimaced. “But the other side is the problem. Tartarus.”

The word seemed to echo through the chamber. The pit behind them exhaled a cold blast of air. That’s when I knew with certainty. The chasm went straight to the Underworld.

 

Percy must have felt it too. He guided Annabeth a little farther from the edge. Her arms and legs trailed spider silk like a bridal train.

 

Percy continued, “Bacchus mentioned something about my voyage being harder than I expected. Not sure why-”

The chamber groaned. The Athena Parthenos tilted to one side. Its head caught on one of Arachne’s support cables, but the marble foundation under the pedestal was crumbling.

Nausea swelled in my chest. If the statue fell into the chasm, all Annabeth's work would be for nothing. Our quest would fail.

“Secure it!” Annabeth cried.

We understood immediately.

“Zhang!” Leo cried. “Get me to the helm, quick! The coach is up there alone.”

Frank transformed into a giant eagle, and the two of them soared toward the ship.

Jason wrapped his arm around Piper. He turned to Percy. “Back for you guys in a sec.” He summoned the wind and shot into the air.

  
“This floor won’t last!” Hazel warned. “The rest of us should get to the ladder.”

Plumes of dust and cobwebs blasted from holes in the floor. The spider’s silk support cables trembled like massive guitar strings and began to snap. Hazel lunged for the bottom of the rope ladder and gestured for Nico to follow, but Nico was in no condition to sprint. I immediately rushed toward him and supported him, but all of his eight - which wasn't much at this point - leaned on top of me. I fed him a little more ambrosia as  Percy gripped Annabeth’s hand tighter. “It’ll be fine,” he muttered.

Looking up, we saw grappling lines shoot from the Argo II and wrap around the statue. One lassoed Athena’s neck like a noose. Leo shouted orders from the helm as Jason and Frank flew frantically from line to line, trying to secure them.

Nico and I had just reached the ladder when Annabeth gasped and stumbled.

“What is it?” Percy asked.

She tried to stagger toward the ladder. Why was she moving backward instead? Her legs swept out from under her and she fell on her face.

“Her ankle!” Hazel shouted from the ladder. “Cut it! Cut it!”

 

I almost cried out in agony; Annabeth was tangled in the spider silk.

 

Something yanked Annabeth backward and dragged her toward the pit. Percy lunged. He grabbed her arm, but the momentum carried him along as well.

“Help them!” Hazel yelled. I let go of Nico and broke out in a quick sprint, but I tripped over a bunch of silk.

Annabeth sobbed as she hit the edge of the pit. Her legs went over the side.

“No,” Percy muttered, light dawning in his eyes. “My sword...”

But he couldn’t reach Riptide without letting go of Annabeth’s arm, and Annabeth’s strength was gone. She slipped over the edge. Percy fell with her. I ripped the silk off, and ran the last bit to the edge.

 

Annabeth had fallen partway into the pit and was dangling over the void. Percy had managed to grab a ledge about fifteen feet below the top of the chasm. He was holding on with one hand, gripping Annabeth’s wrist with the other, but the pull on her leg must've been too strong.

The pit shook. Percy was the only thing keeping her from falling. He was barely holding on to a ledge the size of a bookshelf.

Nico leaned over the edge of the chasm, thrusting out his hand, but he was much too far away to help. I took my bow, but even with the extra five feet, the distacne was too long. Hazel was yelling for the others, but even if they heard her over all the chaos, they’d never make it in time.

“Percy, let me go,” Annabeth croaked. “You can’t pull me up.”

His face was white with effort. I could see in their eyes that they both knew it was hopeless.

“Never,” he said. He looked up at us, fifteen feet above. “The other side, Nico, Cathy! We’ll see you there. Understand?”

Nico’s eyes widened. “But-”

 

"No, Percy, Annie!"

“Lead them there!” Percy shouted. “Promise me!”

“I-I will.”

“We’re staying together,” Percy promised Annabeth. “You’re not getting away from me. Never again.”

Her face hardened with realization.

“As long as we’re together,” she said.

Nico and Hazel were still screaming for help, but I knew this was the only way.

Percy looked up at me, and we nodded to one another. Then he let go of his tiny ledge, and together, holding hands, the two of them fell into the endless darkness.


	30. Chapter 30

**LEO**

I was still in shock.

Everything had happened so quickly. We had secured grappling lines to the Athena Parthenos just as the floor gave way, and the final columns of webbing snapped. Jason and Frank dove down to save the others, but they’d only found Millie, Nico and Hazel hanging from the rope ladder. Percy and Annabeth were gone. The pit to Tartarus had been buried under several tons of debris. I pulled the Argo II out of the cavern seconds before the entire place imploded, taking the rest of the parking lot with it.  
  
The Argo II was now parked on a hill overlooking the city. Jason, Hazel, and Frank had returned to the scene of the catastrophe, hoping to dig through the rubble and find a way to save Percy and Annabeth, but they’d come back demoralized. The cavern was simply gone. The scene was swarming with police and rescue workers. No mortals had been hurt, but the Italians would be scratching their heads for months, wondering how a massive sinkhole had opened right in the middle of a parking lot and swallowed a dozen perfectly good cars.  
  
Dazed with grief, the others and I carefully loaded the Athena Parthenos into the hold, using the ship’s hydraulic winches with an assist from Frank Zhang, part-time elephant. The statue just fit, though what they were going to do with it, I had no idea.  
  
Coach Hedge was too miserable to help. He kept pacing the deck with tears in his eyes, pulling at his goatee and slapping the side of his head, muttering, “I should have saved them! I should have blown up more stuff!”

Finally I told him to go belowdecks and secure everything for departure. He wasn’t doing any good beating himself up.  
  
The seven demigods gathered on the quarterdeck and gazed at the distant column of dust still rising from the site of the implosion.  
  
I rested my hand on the Archimedes sphere, which now sat on the helm, ready to be installed. I should have been excited. It was the biggest discovery of my life - even bigger than Bunker 9. If I could decipher Archimedes’s scrolls, I could do amazing things. I hardly dared to hope, but I might even be able to build a new control disk for a certain dragon friend of mine.  
  
Still, the price had been too high.  
  
I could almost hear Nemesis laughing. _I told you we could do business, Leo Valdez._  
  
I had opened the fortune cookie. I’d gotten the access code for the sphere and saved Frank and Hazel. But the sacrifice had been Percy and Annabeth. I was sure of it.  
  
“It’s my fault,” I said miserably.  
  
The others stared at me. Only Hazel and Millie seemed to understand. They'd been with me at the Great Salt Lake.  
  
“No,” Millie insisted bitterly. “No, this is Gaea’s fault. It had nothing to do with you.”  
  
I wanted to believe that, but I couldn’t. We’d started this voyage with me messing up, firing on New Rome. We’d ended in old Rome with me breaking a cookie and paying a price much worse than an eye.  
  
“Leo, listen to me.” Hazel gripped my hand. “I won’t allow you to take the blame. I couldn’t bear that after-after Sammy...”  
  
She choked up, but I knew what she meant. My _bisabuelo_ had blamed himself for Hazel’s disappearance. Sammy had lived a good life, but he’d gone to his grave believing that he’d spent a cursed diamond and doomed the girl he loved.  
  
I didn’t want to make Hazel miserable all over again, but this was different. True success requires sacrifice. I had chosen to break that cookie. Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

Nico di Angelo shuffled over, leaning on his black sword. Millie helped support him as he spoke. “Leo, they’re not dead. If they were, I could feel it.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked. “If that pit really led to... you know... how could you sense them so far away?”

Nico and Hazel shared a look, maybe comparing notes on their Hades/Pluto death radar. I shivered. Hazel had never seemed like a child of the Underworld to me, but Nico di Angelo - that guy was creepy.

 

“We can’t be one hundred percent sure,” Hazel admitted. “But I think Nico is right. Percy and Annabeth are still alive... at least, so far.”

Jason pounded his fist against the rail. “I should’ve been paying attention. I could have flown down and saved them.”

 

"Me, too,” Frank moaned. The big dude looked on the verge of tears.

Piper put her hand on Jason’s back. “It’s not your fault, either of you. You were trying to save the statue.”

“She’s right,” Nico said. “Even if the pit hadn’t been buried, you couldn’t have flown into it without being pulled down. I’m the only one who has actually been into Tartarus. It’s impossible to describe how powerful that place is. Once you get close, it sucks you in. I never stood a chance.”

Frank sniffled. “Then Percy and Annabeth don’t stand a chance either?”

Nico twisted his silver skull ring. “Percy is the most powerful demigod I’ve ever met. No offense to you guys, but it’s true. If anybody can survive, he will, especially if he’s got Annabeth at his side. They’re going to find a way through Tartarus.”

 

Jason turned. “To the Doors of Death, you mean. But you told us it’s guarded by Gaea’s most powerful forces. How could two demigods possibly-?”

“I don’t know,” Nico admitted. “But Percy told me to lead you guys to Epirus, to the mortal side of the doorway. He’s planning on meeting us there. If we can survive the House of Hades, fight our way through Gaea’s forces, then maybe we can work together with Percy and Annabeth and seal the Doors of Death from both sides.”

“And get Percy and Annabeth back safely?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

I didn’t like the way Nico said that, as if he wasn’t sharing all his doubts. Besides, I knew something about locks and doors. If the Doors of Death needed to be sealed from both sides, how could they do that unless someone stayed in the Underworld, trapped?

Nico took a deep breath. “I don’t know how they’ll manage it, but Percy and Annabeth will find a way. They’ll journey through Tartarus and find the Doors of Death. When they do, we have to be ready.”

 

“It won’t be easy,” Hazel said. “Gaea will throw everything she’s got at us to keep us from reaching Epirus.”

“What else is new?” Jason sighed.

Piper nodded. “We’ve got no choice. We have to seal the Doors of Death before we can stop the giants from raising Gaea. Otherwise her armies will never die. And we’ve got to hurry. The Romans are in New York. Soon, they’ll be marching on Camp Half-Blood.”

“We’ve got one month at best,” Jason added. “Ephialtes said Gaea would awaken in exactly one month.”

I straightened. “We can do it.”

Everyone stared at me.

“The Archimedes sphere can upgrade the ship,” I said, hoping I was right. “I’m going to study those ancient scrolls we got. There’s got to be all kinds of new weapons I can make. We’re going to hit Gaea’s armies with a whole new arsenal of hurt.”

At the prow of the ship, Festus creaked his jaw and blew fire defiantly.

Jason managed a smile. He clapped me on the shoulder.

“Sounds like a plan, Admiral. You want to set the course?”

They kidded me, calling me Admiral, but for once I accepted the title. This was my ship. I hadn’t come this far to be stopped.

We would find this House of Hades. We’d take the Doors of Death. And by the gods, if I had to design a grabber arm long enough to snatch Percy and Annabeth out of Tartarus, then that’s what I would do.

Nemesis wanted me to wreak vengeance on Gaea? I would be happy to oblige. I was going to make Gaea sorry she had ever messed with Leo Valdez.

“Yeah.” I took one last look at the cityscape of Rome, turning bloodred in the sunset. “Festus, raise the sails. We’ve got some friends to save.”


End file.
